Quebec Olympians from the Paris Games come home

With the 2024 Paris Olympic Games over, Team Canada athletes, coaches and support staff are back home. They received a warm greeting on Monday at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport.

Team Canada won a total of 27 medals at this year’s games — with 9 gold, 7 silver and 11 bronze. 

Pointe-Claire diver Nathan Zsombor-Murray was among the athletes who took home a bronze medal –his for the men’s 10 metre platform synchronized final. 

“It’s the culmination of 16 years of my life. Diving is kind of all I’ve known. So it’s, yeah, it’s the pinnacle of my career. It’s all the hard work, you know, brought into one moment, one object,” said Zsombor-Murray.

After all that work, having the support from his home diving club in Pointe-Claire meant a lot to him.

“Those are my roots, right? So seeing my old coaches, old teammates even, that are retired now. I was flooded with messages from all of them. So it means the world to know that they got to see me mature and, you know, see me as a little kid and now performing at the games and bringing back metal,” he says.

Canadian springboard diver, Caeli McKay recalls the energy from the crowd during the games.

“It was really, really nice having such a loud crowd. And being able to do a good performance with a loud crowd is something really, really special—hitting the water and coming out of the water and just hearing, you know, the roar of the crowd. And being able to hear my family cheer for me, that was really special,” she said.

Many fans gathered at the airport and were excited to catch a glimpse of their favorite athletes.

“I think it’s important to support them because they all deserve support from everybody in the world. It’s a very important thing, a very joyous thing that they got into the Olympics in the first place. That’s a very big opportunity, and I think that they should be proud of that,” said one fan waiting at the airport.

Although some athletes didn’t bring home a medal, being at the games was the real reward.

“I’d say just competing in a massive stadium with 80,000 people in it—that was pretty awesome,” said Canadian track and field athlete, Thomas Fafard.