Twenty-One Medals: The Full Account of What Canada Did in Italy

The Games are closed. The flag has been brought home — carried into the Closing Ceremony by long-track speed skater Valérie Maltais and short-tracker Steven Dubois, both of them multi-medallists — and the final accounting for Canada at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics reads as follows: five gold, seven silver, nine bronze. Twenty-one medals in total. Eighth in the world by medal count.

That number deserves to be examined with some honesty. Twenty-one medals is fewer than Beijing 2022, where Canada finished with 26 — tied for the country's second-highest total ever. This was a quieter Games in some ways. It was also a Games that produced individual performances worth recording carefully. So here they are, sport by sport, with the details that matter.

Men's Gold — Brad Jacobs, Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant, Ben Hebert, Tyler Tardi (alt.)

Canada beat Great Britain 9-6 in the men's final. Brad Jacobs, who won gold at Sochi 2014 and had not competed at an Olympics since, returned at 38 years old and played some of the most controlled, precise curling of the entire tournament. Tardi, the alternate from Calgary, is a first-time Olympic medallist. This team was not supposed to be the story of these Games. They became one anyway.

Women's Bronze — Rachel Homan, Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew, Sarah Wilkes, Rachelle Brown (alt.)

Canada has now won at least one curling medal at every Winter Olympics since Nagano 1998. That streak is 28 years old. Homan's team earned their bronze in a competitive field. Fleury and Wilkes are first-time Olympic medallists.

Men's Silver — Team Canada

Connor McDavid was named tournament MVP and Best Forward. He finished with 13 points in five games, a new record for any NHL-era Olympic player. Macklin Celebrini, 19 years old, led the entire tournament in goals with five. Canada went to overtime in the gold medal final against the United States and lost 2-1 on a Jack Hughes wrist shot 1:41 into 3-on-3. The shot count for the game was 41-26 in Canada's favour. Sidney Crosby did not dress for the final due to a lower-body injury sustained against Czechia in the quarterfinal.

This was Canada's best Olympic men's hockey result since the gold at Sochi 2014 — the last time NHL players competed at a Winter Games. The silver is Canada's 17th medal in Olympic men's hockey, the most of any nation in the event's history.

Women's Silver — Team Canada

Canada has now medalled at every Olympic women's hockey tournament ever contested: five golds and three silvers. Marie-Philip Poulin, the team captain from Beauceville, Que., scored her 19th and 20th career Olympic goals at these Games, passing Hayley Wickenheiser's all-time record. The women lost to the United States in their gold medal final.

Women's Team Pursuit Gold — Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais, Isabelle Weidemann

This is the one that rarely gets the coverage it deserves. Canada defended its Olympic title in the women's team pursuit, becoming the first country to win back-to-back Olympic gold in that event since Germany in 2006 and 2010. Blondin is from Ottawa. Maltais is from Saguenay, Que. Weidemann is from Ottawa. All three are world-class athletes who have been quietly doing this at an elite level for years.

Women's 3000m Bronze — Valérie Maltais

Maltais opened Canada's medal account at these Games, the very first Canadian podium of Milano Cortina 2026. She is from La Baie in the Saguenay region of Quebec, a name that may not be immediately familiar to most English Canadians, and that is a failure of attention rather than a reflection of her career.

Women's 1500m Bronze — Valérie Maltais

Maltais finished the Games with three medals, gold and two bronzes. The 1500m bronze marked Canada's first Olympic podium in that event since the last time the Winter Games were held in Italy, at Turin 2006. She carried the flag at the Closing Ceremony. It was a fitting choice.

Men's 500m Gold — Steven Dubois

Dubois won Canada's second gold of the Games with a sharp, aggressive 500m final. He went home with two medals overall — gold and silver — and carried the closing flag alongside Maltais. He is from Terrebonne, Que.

Women's 1500m Gold (team event) and multi-medal performance — Courtney Sarault

The most decorated Canadian at these Games was not a hockey player or a freestyle skier. It was Courtney Sarault, a short track speed skater from Moncton, New Brunswick — notably, the first Canadian from outside Quebec to win an individual Olympic medal in short track. She won four medals at Milano Cortina 2026. The only other Canadian to win four medals at a single Winter Games is Cindy Klassen, who won five at Turin 2006. That is the company Sarault is now in. The short track podium is overwhelmingly dominated by Quebec athletes; Sarault's individual medals are a genuinely notable geographic milestone for her province and for her sport.

Kim Boutin of Sherbrooke, Que., finished these Games with six career Olympic medals, tying her with Klassen and Charles Hamelin as Canada's most decorated Winter Olympians.

Florence Brunelle of Trois-Rivières and the team short track relay added further depth, with Canada winning bronze in the women's 3000m relay — the country's first Olympic medal in that specific event since Sochi 2014.

Men's Dual Moguls Gold — Mikaël Kingsbury

Kingsbury won the inaugural Olympic gold medal in men's dual moguls, a new event at these Games. He also took silver in the traditional men's moguls event, becoming the first freestyle skier in history to win a medal in the same event at four consecutive Winter Olympics. He is from Deux-Montagnes, Que. He is 31 years old. He is, by any honest accounting, the greatest moguls skier this country has ever produced and one of the greatest winter athletes of his generation.

Women's Ski Halfpipe Silver — Megan Oldham

Oldham of Parry Sound, Ont., won two medals at these Games in skiing events. The halfpipe silver is a significant result for a discipline Canada has historically been competitive in but rarely dominant.

Men's Ski Halfpipe Bronze — Brendan Mackay

Mackay, from Calgary, won Canada's only other Olympic medal in men's ski halfpipe since Mike Riddle's silver at Sochi 2014. He is a first-time Olympic medallist.

Ice Dance Bronze — Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier

Gilles is from Toronto. Poirier is from Unionville, Ont. Their bronze is Canada's fifth all-time Olympic medal in ice dance and the fourth in the last five Games — a level of consistency in a discipline that receives inconsistent national attention. Both are first-time individual Olympic medallists.

Five golds. Seven silvers. Nine bronzes. Twenty-one Canadians, from twenty-one different cities and towns, standing on Olympic podiums over sixteen days in northern Italy.

The coverage will default to hockey — it usually does, and there are reasons for that, and the hockey was genuinely excellent. But the athlete who won the most medals at these Games was a short track skater from Moncton. The athlete who carried Canada's flag into the Closing Ceremony skates long-track circuits at 5 a.m. in Saguenay. The man who won a gold medal in the inaugural dual moguls event has been doing this since Stephen Harper was Prime Minister.

Canada sent 207 athletes across 14 sports to Milano. Twenty-one of them came home with hardware. The rest competed against the best in the world and will carry that with them.

That is the complete record. All of it earned.

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