A hero’s welcome awaited Canada’s Olympic athletes Monday as they had been greeted by associates, household and followers on their return from the Milan Cortina Video games.
Canada ended the Video games with 21 medals, together with 5 gold. However our athletes had simply eight medals and no gold on the midway mark and rebounded with 13 within the second half, starting with freestyle skier Mikaël Kingsbury’s twin moguls victory.
Kingsbury, chatting with reporters in Montreal, mentioned the Milan Cortina Video games had been “all the pieces I dreamed of.”
The 33-year-old received a silver medal within the males’s moguls earlier than taking the gold within the Olympic debut of the twin moguls occasion.
“Clearly, to win that first in historical past in mogul snowboarding, the primary gold medal, and the primary for Canada, to be the flag-bearer, it was large,” he mentioned. “And to have my household there, my son, on the backside of the course, I couldn’t script it higher.”
Speedskating star Courtney Sarault, who received 4 quick monitor medals, was greeted by a big contingent of household who met her with hugs and flowers.
“They’ve been so supportive via this complete expertise and rooting for me, waking up early or every time the occasions had been,” Sarault mentioned. “So simply to share this expertise with them, it’s one thing I’ll always remember.”
A gaggle of well-wishers applauded as speedskater Valérie Maltais walked via the gate along with her three medals round her neck.
Maltais mentioned carrying Canada’s flag on the Olympic closing ceremony was an emotional expertise.
“I actually needed to take pleasure in that second and slightly bit overlook all of the cameras, all of the interviews that I’ve executed, of what it means,” she mentioned. “And I actually went within me, of ‘what is that this journey that I simply went via?’”
The 35-year-old received Canada’s first medal of the Video games with a bronze within the 3,000 metres, and adopted it up with gold with teammates Ivanie Blondin and Isabelle Weidemann in girls’s crew pursuit earlier than including one other bronze within the girls’s 1,500 metres.
Maltais mentioned she expects it’s going to take time for her Olympic expertise to sink in absolutely, however she is glad to have impressed others along with her efficiency and the feelings she confirmed.
“I used to be myself throughout these Olympics,” she mentioned. “I used to be simply, like, absolutely having fun with it, absolutely expressing how I used to be feeling.”
Maltais has confirmed this will probably be her last Olympics.
About two dozen supporters, waving Canadian flags and carrying purple and white, cheered as roller Ben Hebert, carrying a gold medal round his neck, together with fifth Tyler Tardi and coach Paul Webster, arrived in Calgary.
Hebert, the lead, was a part of Brad Jacobs’ gold medal crew. He additionally received a gold medal in Vancouver in 2010. Hebert mentioned he’s not fairly positive it has sunk in but, and this gold medal is totally different as a result of Canada was not the favorite prefer it was in Vancouver.
“We had been in all probability the second or third seed getting in. We weren’t ranked No 1 like we had been in Vancouver, so to climb to the highest of the rostrum — it feels simply pretty much as good. There as soon as was an expectation that you just had been going to go and win gold each time as a Canadian roller,” mentioned Hebert.
“There’s 5 or 6 actually, actually good groups at each worldwide occasion that might all be carrying gold medals, so I don’t suppose there’s that expectation of gold or bust anymore. Any medal you may come residence with from a world championship or Olympic video games is a large accomplishment, and so this one for us is further particular.”
A few dozen supporters had been at Toronto Pearson airport. Some waved Canadian flags whereas others took selfies with athletes and requested for autographs.
Hebert’s teammate, Brett Gallant, was glad to be again after a month.
“I simply really feel sort of a few of the Canadian delight, a few of the pleasure that we have now been feeling from afar, however now to be residence — it’s nice,” he instructed reporters.
He mentioned it felt “fairly thrilling” when Canada acquired momentum in the direction of the tip of the Olympics.
“When there was the curling medal spherical after which the ladies’s and males’s hockey medal rounds, as Canadians, we had been fairly excited to look at most of that,” Gallant mentioned.
The Olympics ended Sunday.
It was after 11:30 p.m. when members of the silver-medal-winning girls’s hockey crew got here via the gate after touchdown in Montreal, after a tricky Olympic match that noticed each the boys’s and girls’s squads lose the gold-medal matches to america in additional time.
Captain Marie-Philip Poulin mentioned the crew was coming residence with their heads held excessive.
“I don’t suppose we may be dissatisfied about the way in which the boys’s and girls’s groups performed their matches,” mentioned Poulin, who performed a lot of the match on a sore knee after an harm within the second sport.
When requested how she felt bodily and mentally, she stored her reply transient.
“I feel the Olympics is on the highest stage of each athlete, that’s what you dream of,” she mentioned. “There’s ups and downs to all of it.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Feb. 23, 2026.
— With information from Sharif Hassan in Toronto and Morgan Lowrie in Montreal