It’s a big summer for Olympic sports

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The Paris Games are still a year away, but several major summer Olympic sporting events will take place in the coming months. Here’s a quick look at what’s to come and some Canadian storylines to follow:

World Swimming Championships (July 14-30)

This mass encounter in Japan includes scuba diving, water polo, artistic swimming and open water swimming, but the main attraction is the traditional swimming events held over the last eight days.

Canadian swimmers won a national record 11 medals in the pool last year at the world championships in Hungary, where Summer McIntosh emerged as one of the sport’s most exciting young stars. At just 15 years old, she became the first ever Canadian swimmer to win multiple gold medals in one world by winning the women’s 400m individual medley and 200m butterfly, and added silver in the 400m freestyle and 4×200 meter freestyle relay.

Since then, McIntosh has only gotten faster. At the Canadian trials last spring, she broke the women’s world record in both the 400-meter individual medley and 400-meter freestyle and shattered five junior world records.

McIntosh, who turns 17 in mid-August, looks set to take over the Canadian swimming torch (if she hasn’t already) from Penny Oleksiak. The seven-time Olympic medalist is skipping the worlds as she needs more time to recover from last summer’s knee surgery and a subsequent shoulder injury.

Canada’s paraswimmers should also impress at their world championships in England from July 31. They earned 18 medals, including six golds, at last year’s worlds in Portugal. Five-time Paralympic gold medalist and four-time Para World Champion Aurélie Rivard headlines the Canadian team on its way to Manchester.

Women’s World Cup (July 20 – August 20)

Canada’s women’s soccer team should enter the tournament in Australia and New Zealand with a lot of confidence and momentum after their thrilling Olympic gold medal victory in Japan two summers ago. Instead, the side is embroiled in a bitter labor dispute with Canada Soccer, while dealing with injuries to a number of key players, including striking striker Janine Beckie, who is out of the World Cup with a torn cruciate ligament.

At number 7 in the world, Canada is the highest ranked team in its group. But securing the top-two finish needed to continue won’t be easy against a deep slate of opponents. After opening vs. Ranked 40th Nigeria on July 20, the Canadians face No. 22 Ireland on July 26 and 10th ranked hosts Australia on July 31.

This is likely to be the last World Cup for 40-year-old Canadian captain Christine Sinclair, whose 190 international goals are the most in football history. Read about how Sinclair approaches her sixth journey to the big dance in this story from CBC Sports contributor Shireen Ahmed.

World Athletics Championships (Aug 19-27)

The last major athletics competition before the Paris Olympics will take place in Hungary, where Damian Warner will try to complete some unfinished business. After finally capturing an Olympic gold medal in Tokyo two summers ago, the Canadian decathlete looked poised to take an elusive world title in Oregon last summer. But a hamstring injury in the 400 meters ruled him out of the game.

Lesser-known Canadian Pierce LePage dove in for the silver medal at world championships, then upset Warner at Austria’s prestigious Hypo Meeting in May, where he broke his teammate’s streak of six consecutive wins. It was the first international victory for 27-year-old LePage, who also finished fifth at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Andre De Grasse also has something to prove on this summer’s worlds. Canada’s greatest track and field star has made a habit of saving his best for the biggest encounters – an approach that has resulted in six Olympic medals, culminating in a gold in the 200m in 2021, and five World Championships, including the stunning gold on last year’s 4×100 meters. But De Grasse, 28, hasn’t looked like a medal contender this season. He’s still chasing his first solo win and, more worryingly, hasn’t come close to the 20-second 200m and 10-second 100m benchmarks.

Canada’s Marco Arop, 24, could be in contention for another medal in the 800 meters after breaking into the worlds with bronze last year. And Camryn Rogers, also 24, is aiming for a second straight podium in the women’s hammer throw after taking silver last year.

The Para-Athletics World Championships kick off in Paris on Saturday. Canadians won eight medals at the 2021 Paralympic Games, including a gold medal each from shot putter Greg Stewart and middle-distance runner Nate Riech and four silver medals from wheelchair racer Brent Lakatos, bringing his career Paralympic medal tally to 11.

Basketball World Cup (August 25 – September 10)

The best way for Canada’s men’s basketball team to qualify for the first Olympic Games since 2000 is through the World Cup in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia. The top two finishers from the region of Canada, America, will receive tickets to Paris. Even assuming the United States will grab one of them, there’s no reason why a Canadian roster full of NBA talent can’t reel in the other.

Players committed to the World Cup include guards Jamal Murray, who was the second best player on the Nikola Jokic-led Denver Nuggets team that just won the NBA title; and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who finished fifth in MVP voting this season and fourth in scoring with 31.4 points per game for Oklahoma City. OKC’s Lu Dort, New York’s RJ Barrett, Indiana’s Bennedict Mathurin and NCAA Player of the Year Zach Edey give Canada even more talented youngsters to work with. And there’s still hope that Golden State Warriors standout Andrew Wiggins will jump aboard with new coach Jordi Fernandez, who took over from Nick Nurse after the former Raptors coach left the Canadian program last week.

Canada got a break when NBA draft No. 1 Victor Wembanyama decided he would not play for France, arguably Canada’s best team in the group. The others are Latvia and Lebanon. The top two advance to the next round.

While Canada’s men’s team watches the World Cup, the women can cut their way to the Paris Olympics at the AmeriCup, which tipped over in Mexico last weekend. Canada is 2-0 after routing the hosts and Puerto Rico. The next game for the world’s fifth-ranked team is another group stage match tonight vs. Colombia. A trip to the finals of the tournament will likely give Canada a spot in February’s Olympic qualifying tournament.