The Current - Canadian Olympic greats on the power of the Games

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Clara Hughes. Hayley Wickenheiser. Beckie Scott. Legends of Team Canada with 13 Olympic medals between them. So what do they watch for when Team Canada competes — and what goes through their minds when they see more Canadian athletes climb onto the podium? Olympians on why we should lean into the Olympics.

The firehose of news from America can feel like a lot these days. If you're trying to figure out what to make of it all, we got you. I'm Katie Simpson. And I'm Paul Hunter. We're correspondents here in Washington. Working just around the corner from where much of the action is taking place. Two blocks from the White House. And that's the name of our new podcast. For top-notch analysis of U.S. politics from a Canadian perspective,

find two blocks from the White House every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. including YouTube. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. The Winter Olympics begin today, and over the next couple of weeks, we will be watching for extraordinary moments from Canadian athletes, moments like these. Wickenheiser goes back, pool and shot, blocked.

Wickenheiser again, touchback from Johnson. Here comes 14o. Go to Johnson, back to 14o. Good, passing movement, 14. You know, surely a shot's going to come. It's there. Canada have done it. They've won their fourth consecutive goal medal.

What a finish. Becky Scott, with a chance to make some history for Canada. Canada has never meddled in cross-country competition at the Olympic game. In a train. And it's Becky Scott in the lead of that train. Becky Scott, remember who is Tepolova. Becky Scott looks over the shoulder. She's got to get out.

Becky Scott's going to go against Chepaolova. Becky Scott's in charge he's got it! Becky Scott! Becky Scott has done it for the Canadians. The last lap for Claudia Pekstein in Germany and Clara Hughes of Canada. Will it be a one-two finish for the Canadians? What will the color of the metal be this time around for Clara Hughes? The time to be seven minutes, point five, seven seconds as Hughes and Pekstein drive to the finish line.

Here they come. Clara Hughes at Bextime. And they get to the line, Vera Hughes of Canada and gold. Come on. Haley Wickenheiser, on the ice as the Canadian women's hockey team won its fourth consecutive gold medal at the Sochi Games in 2014.

Then Becky Scott, winning gold in cross-country skiing and almost photo finish in Salt Lake City in 2002. And finally, Clara Hughes, speed skating her way to Olympic gold in Turin in 2006. I'm joined by those three Canadian legends. It's Haley Wickenheiser, Becky Scott, and Clara Hughes. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Matt.

Hello, Matt. Great to be here. Those were defining moments for you, but also for this country, I think. And I mean, you've had some distance from those moments. But how do you look back on them? Haley, how do you look back on that moment? You know, in some ways it's like it's yesterday. And in other ways, it's, you know, feels a while ago.

But it's always with great pride, a lot of, you know, when I was listening to Becky, and Clara's moments, I just got chills because, you know, I was there in some way, shape, or form. I watched Clara's race. I wasn't at Becky's, but I was like, you were there, you were in it, you're at the Olympics, you're part of it. So it's just brings back so many great memories, really, to hear that. Becky, what about for you?

I mean, chills is about right hearing that call. Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, Scott Russell and Jack Sassville, like, it's still emotional for me, honestly, to hear them and the emotion in their voices because it was such a, it was such a moment. It was really a defining moment for our sport. And yeah, like Haley said, some days it feels like yesterday, you can't help but feel it in your heart and your chest when you just, when I think about it. And what changed, what transpired after that, of course, because in the moment on the day, it was a bronze.

And then, of course, it was this whole saga that evolved after that to become gold. So there was a huge story that came out of that moment. but that actual, you know, those minutes were life-changing and just so, so huge. Clara, what about for you? As I said, I mean, there's distance between that moment and where you are now, but listening back to that, and Steve Armitage's call, I mean, it sounds like yesterday. It does, and it was such an exciting race. It literally came down to the wire, and I just remember the pain more than anything.

I remember how much that hurt. I felt like I was having a heart attack, and every muscle fiber, my body after that race was just in agony, but it was kind of like pulling off the impossible, believing in what I didn't quite believe was possible on the day and finding it inside myself. And just listening to Haley's moment and Becky's moment as well, not just those moments that I'm so deeply attached to, but everything that these women stand for and have done in their lives from those moments forward, I also think about that. And it's just so much more than sport. It's a beautiful moment, but where do the moments lead?

That's what brings me to that idea of possibility, not just in the race. One of the reasons why we wanted to talk to you three was because athletes are going to be gathering for the opening ceremonies. And we can watch it and we can imagine what it's like. But you were there. Becky, what is that experience like as you're standing waiting for this thing to start? Yeah, well, it's different every time. You know, so many of us have been to multiple Olympic games. And the first one, of course, is just an incredibly enlightening experience.

experience in a lot of ways. Everything is new and it's huge and it's magical and it's just so big the experience because often, you know, many athletes have been dreaming about this and thinking about it and preparing about it for almost a lifetime. So it's finally coming to bear. And then, you know, as you evolve as an athlete and you're going to maybe your second or third Olympics and you're really looking for performance and you're driven to succeed there. And so it's a totally different mindset and a totally different way of thinking and coming into an Olympic Games. It's really, really fun. It's really, really exciting and totally inspiring.

Haley, you've played a lot of hockey, but what is different about the Olympics? Well, the Olympics is, you know, it's everyone. It's every sport. I think when you go to the village, Becky's right, you know, in your first games, it's just all so, everything's so cool. Look at the, look at the bed. Look at the kit. They left on the bed.

Look at, you know, the opening ceremonies, the extravagance of it all. And then as you go through your career, it's like, is it a bad comfortable? Is the food good? There's different questions. Do I have to be on my legs too much? But I think the thing about the Olympics is that, you know, athletes that go majority are incredibly serious about what they're doing, but you're also surrounded by many other sports.

So you're on a greater team than just the hockey team. And that's what I always felt is it was so great to be in there and integrate with all the other sports and the athletes and cheer for them and feel their pain and their joy, which can give you a lot of energy and then it can also take it away. So you're managing your energy through that whole experience

while you're trying to enjoy it as well and perform. And the pain is part of it too, right? I mean, not everybody wins, and so that's part of that experience as well. Yeah, I think the reality is most athletes that go to the Olympics don't win. I mean, if you think about it. So after a few days,

there's a lot of athletes that haven't been successful and a few that have. So the dynamic actually changes, too, as you go through the games in terms of, you know, what happens in the village and, you know, the different energy that's around there. What does it like to lead the country into the games, Clara? No, that was unforgettable.

As a flag bearer, I mean, you're leading your teammates in, but you're leading the country into that stadium. It was my first race of the games in 2010. That's how I saw it. And there was, you know, preparation, there was execution and then recovery. And that was the opening ceremony. But what it was is something so far beyond competing and representing. I will never forget being handed our flag and looking back and seeing the sea of red behind me.

But what I will also never forget is walking into BC Place Stadium. And on a very summer day in the Winter Olympics in 2010 in Vancouver, and hearing the beat of the drums of dancers of youth from all across Inuit Nunangat, Turtle Island, the Méti Nation homelands, they were youth from all the communities in the center of that stage, dancing, showing, culture, story, tradition, history. And I had learned from friends from the Squamish Nation before the games about the drama and that it was the heartbeat of Mother Earth. And I just remember hearing it, knowing that was the rhythm I was going to skate to. And that was the beat of all of our hearts together in that moment. And it just felt like being

millions of people inside of me, I felt like everyone was there from coast to coast to coast. And it was incredible. How do you keep it together in that? And not. I mean, that's a lot, right? I'm a person that when I get hurt, I laugh. So I think I just laughed. I laughed and cried the whole walk and just took it all in. Really just absorbed the moment. And quite frankly, Matt, I saw it as fuel.

It was fuel. I knew that everybody was standing beside me, around me, lifting me up. It was a sense of not being alone with the whole team. You know, as Haley said, you're so much bigger than yourself. And you're in awe of all the people around you, and they're showing you how it's done. Look, chances are your algorithm is still locked into everything that happened at this year's Grammy Awards. So let's talk about it. I'm Alameen, and this week on Commotion, I'm assembling the group chat to talk about the big winners

and the surprises that no one saw coming and the snubs that people are upset about from music's biggest night. Find and follow Commotion with Elamene Abdul-Mahmood on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. What do you think happens to us during the Winter Olympics? You'll see people who are cheering for sports that they follow, but then you see people become obsessed with sports. They couldn't name if there was a test in front of them. They fall in love with these sports. What happens do you think over the next couple of weeks?

Well, I think we come together. I think it's a place where we can be so different and we can be one. And I think people, we are longing for that connection right now in this day and age more than ever. And sport is that kind of like that common ground that we can find. And the Olympics is, I think the ultimate common ground because we come together as a nation under one flag, one people. And I also think that it's kind of like one of the last places that we all see the same thing. Like we are watching the feed, the only feed from the games.

We're not watching a different camera angle. We're actually all watching the same thing. Absolutely. And it brings us together. And I think it connects people to a joy and a playfulness and a youthfulness and a curiosity that lives inside of everyone that we may have lost. Haley, hockey is one of those moments that will really bring people together. And the women's hockey is such a marquee event for this country in every winter Olympics. What are you looking forward to seeing from Team Canada in what Clara has just been talking about?

Is it being like a rallying moment for us? You know, I think what we always expect, which is a gold medal, you know, just to be really straightforward. It's, it's, there's, you know, when you play hockey in this country, there is only one medal that everyone sort of strives for and plays for both on the men's and the women's side. But I think outside of that, it's, it's what you want to do when you go to the games is you, you want to play the best hockey you've ever played. And whatever happens after that, it doesn't really matters. Just as long as those athletes can leave saying, hey, we performed at our best. I mean, that's, that's what I hope for for the team is they, they give it their all. and, you know, whatever happens happens.

But it is, you know, there is something about hockey in Canada that brings people together unlike anything else we've seen. And with the NHL players back after 12 years, there'll be a lot of eyes on that. It'll be exciting. I'm sure Canada, US final, it'll be in the cards, but you never know what happens. What do you think that Canada, US final,

if it happens, would be like in this moment? I mean, I could say that there's been a heated rivalry between these two teams. And, I mean, there has been. People love each other. People hate each other. What do you think in this moment? right now in 2026 that game would be like.

Same like every other game. Every other U.S. Canada game, just a heat or gravely, exactly what you said. Just intense competition. Both teams have respect for each other for what they do for the game and the sport. But in those moments, you know, you were trying to win a gold for your country. So I just expect it to be just like every other Canada, US final that we've ever seen. I mean, it's interesting because a lot of those players play together in the PWHL. but we're also in this moment of, and it's not to bring politics into it,

but politics will come into it, right? And you wonder whether that would factor into those games? I don't think so. I mean, we, you know, politics sort of, you know, with 2002, it was just after 9-11, you know, 2014, you had the Russian doping situation. There's always political matter at the games. And the athletes, they're not really there to deal with that. They're there to perform and play at their best.

And it's Canada versus the U.S. It's the pride of one nation versus the pride of another. And right now, I think there's a little bit more for us to play for and want to win for. And every Canadian feels that, knows that. Becky, what do you think about that? I mean, is there more for us, us being Canada, to play for and win for in this moment? The Olympics has always had an undercurrent of geopolitics. We've seen that, you know, in the last few Olympics with Russia being, you know, labeled neutral and coming in as the independent team under the Olympic flag.

Like, you know, there's no real separation between sport and politics. It never has been. And I think that we, that's a reality. But the flip side of that is that sport can be very nation-building. And as Clara said, you know, people really unite. They really rally around it. And so there is this sort of extra element of competitiveness of just team spirit. I think going into sport, and particularly the Olympics, as the whole world watches.

It's the only global event. where everybody is watching and has their eyes on their teams and their sports. Can I just ask about your own interaction with that politics? I mean, you have seen, Becky, I guess the Olympic machine from up close when you were a member of the IOC, but also part of the World Anti-Doping Agency. And people will remember that you resigned from part of that, from the Compliance Committee, because the Russian Anti-Doping Committee was put back in. And there are people who could go through that who could come out feeling. cynical about the Olympics, say that this is, I mean, it's rotten, that it's not what we claim it to be. And yet you aren't that.

Tell me a little bit about that and what you still love about it and how you fight for what you still love about the Olympics. I did spend a lot of time in the top levels of the sport administration, as you said, at the IOC and at the World Anti-Doping Agency. I was there through one of the biggest doping scandals that sport has seen. And I would say that I did become a little bit cynical. And Haley and Clara know this well. I often said, you know, I was seeing the dark side of sport.

And really how politics started trumping principle time and again and the decision making, particularly around the Russian doping scandal. So, yes, I did become a little bit cynical, I would say, a little bit pessimistic about the future of sport. And then the Olympics would happen, you know. And every single time it would be the athletes that saved it for me, these human stories of the athletes. coming to the games and the contest of best effort and the triumphs and disappointments and grace

under pressure and all those things that were that were happening at the Olympic Games because of the athletes. And that's what saved it for me every time. And that's what keeps bringing me back to sport is that as much as the powers that be are invested in the business and it can go so sideways, there's still this beautiful piece of it, which is the heart and soul of it. I think it saves it every time for me anyway. Haley, how do you see that? I mean, you spend a lot of time working with young players, developing them, talking about the power of sport and what sport can do for them.

What is the light side of that? Because it's easy to see the negative side of things. And the giant machine, to Becky's point, the operation that controls it would have you. But what do you see as the light side of it? What is the potential of something like this for young people in particular? Well, it's people like Becky Scott. I think I would just like all Canadians to know. that Becky Scott is one of the bravest Canadian athletes,

I think we've ever seen in what she initially did to stand up for, you know, what was right with anti-doping to go against the IOC. I happen to be convinced by Becky to take over from her. She left the IOC Athletes Commission and got eight lovely years inside the AIOC myself. And so thank you, Becky, for that. But I tend to feel, I tend to see it very simple. to Becky. But on the flip side, it is athletes like Becky, Clara, like the great people and performances that you see. And honestly, the 10-year-old Haley growing up in Saskatchewan watching

Maddie Nukin come down that ski jump in Calgary. That was my Olympic hero in the 88 Olympics. I went home to Saskatchew and I tried to build a ski jump in the barn and that was what I was going to do. And that is a powerful thing. And that is the beautiful thing of the Olympics. Unfortunately, there is this other side that is a part of it. I just hope for the athletes, they can be free of that for their career, unlike what Becky and I sort of saw and went through. But there is something magical about the games. I still believe, and it sort of is that conflict,

I think, that lives inside both of us knowing what we know and many athletes knowing what they know. Clara, what do you tell those young athletes about that? I mean, there are names that we know, but at the end of these two weeks, there will be somebody who comes out of, nowhere, he said in Quintation marks, who becomes a hero, right? And it's kind of incredible. Yeah, and it's beautiful. I had the chance to speak with this winter Olympic team in the summer for one of their preparatory events. And it was just such a nice, like, humble, but fiercely strong

and determined and confident group of young athletes. And I remember talking to them about old stories and dead stories. I'm like, my Olympics, my races, those are dead stories. They've happened. Like, I bring them to life every time I talk about them. but I shared with them, I'm like, you are the living, breathing stories that are going to come to life in these games, and you have the chance to inspire a nation. You have a chance to connect kids to sport. You know, when Haley talks about the ski jump, I think about Gaitan Boucher skating in 88. When I saw him on TV from my mom's living room, that February frigid Winnipeg afternoon that, you know, was getting into all sorts of trouble. But I saw Gaytan skate.

He didn't win that day. He was the defending champion. He finished in ninth place. but him trying and literally like grinding himself to the bone trying to do the impossible change my life. It planted a seed inside of me. And for these young athletes, they have a chance to plant seeds all over Canada to show kids what's possible, to show people what's possible when we can come together respectfully and still try to kick each other's butts. And there's something to be said for that in this day and age of like utter, you know, blatant disrespect and all levels of society.

I think the Olympics is something that still shows that level of class, that level of respect for one another, that can be at the highest level of competition. So I'm excited and the athletes have a chance to shine, to shine in their sports, to shine in this country, to shine for everyone. You are three of our best. What a real pleasure to have the chance to talk to the three of you together about what you've done, but also what this means. Thank you very much for being here. Thanks, Matt. Thank you, Matt. three Olympic champions, Haley Wickenhizer, Becky Scott, and Clara Hughes.

You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.