Meet the Kitchener athletes heading to the Paris Olympics

With the Paris Olympics officially two weeks away, three local athletes from Kitchener will be representing Team Canada.

Eric Peters, 27, who is competing in archery, moved to Kitchener from Ottawa 10 years ago for school at the University of Waterloo. He graduated with a degree in Honours Science with a minor in chemistry.

He said he found out he would be on the team back in May and it feels “surreal” to be going to his first Olympic games.

“I’ve been very much blessed with the opportunity to have been at a big actual event and having won medals before,” said Peters.

At the 2019 Pan American Games, Peters won both a gold medal in the men’s team recurve and a bronze in the men’s individual recurve.

“I’m gonna feel some nerves, feel a little worried and have some expectations of things that I want to do. But, I’m just going to go in there and do my best with that and try and keep it all under control. It’s fine if I’m feeling a little nervous… it just means I care.”

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Peters is currently ranked fifth in the world in the sport after finishing in fifth at the Archery World Cup in Antalya, Türkiye in June.

According to a release from Team Canada, Peters already made Canadian history in the sport when he won silver in the individual recurve event at the 2023 World Archery Championships after going up against the reigning world champion Mete Gazoz.

He is expected to leave for France on Sunday, where he will attend training camp before going into Paris on July 21.

Ben Flanagan, 29, who is competing in the 5,000 metre race, first began running on the cross country team while attending St. Mary’s High School in Kitchener. He said he found out he would be on the team on July 2 and that Paris would be his first Olympic games.

“I was ecstatic,” said Flanagan. “I just missed out on the team to Tokyo back in 2021 and that was a pretty devastating result at the time. So to finally represent Canada at the Olympics is a dream come true.”

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Flanagan said he grew up playing hockey, baseball and soccer, but found himself better at cross country.

Some of his biggest influences in the sport include his sister and Krestena Sullivan, his cross country coach at St. Mary’s. He would represent Canada a few times during his time there. After high school, he attended school in Michigan for five years and won in NCAA in the 10,000 metre.

Ben will fly out to France on July 22 and will spend 10 days at training camp before his first event on August 7.

NBA Champion and Kitchener-born Jamal Murray will also be heading to Paris to represent Canada for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Canada Basketball made the announcement Wednesday afternoon.

The Paris Olympics will run from July 26 to August 11.

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