London, Ont. family celebrates as daughter carries Canadian flag in Tokyo
It was a sleepless night for Gus and Sandy Ayim, with the anticipation of watching daughter Miranda walking into Olympic Stadium in Tokyo bearing the Canadian flag.
“Exhilaration, nervousness, anticipation as we just saw the flag...the Canada flag in the corner in the back, in the tunnel, and then that ratcheted everything up just a little bit as we saw the anticipation of them coming out,” says Gus.
Wife Sandy added, “I keep pinching myself. Is this really happening? And, just so, so excited for Miranda, and so excited for the whole Canadian team, and so excited for all of our friends and family because it takes a village to raise a child.”
At their London, Ont. home, memories of road trips to tournaments and early morning practices flood the mind for Gus as he watched his daughter realizing a dream come true in her final Olympic appearance.
“I was thinking about the early morning practices, she would want to shoot before school, so we would get to school a couple of hours before, and I might be in my suit ready for work, but I’d go and rebound.”
Mom Sandy reflected on the sacrifices her daughter had to make in her personal life in order to achieve this moment.
“Miranda has been away from family for so long, spent birthdays and holidays away, so there is that sacrifice, and yet anything worth doing, is worth doing hard and giving it that full commitment.”
Ayim will lead the Canadian women’s basketball team into action on Monday against Serbia in the first game of the preliminary round.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
For the first time in report's history, Canada's air quality worse than U.S.
Thanks to wildfires, air quality in Canada is now worse than in the U.S., according to the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report.
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
DEVELOPING Canada's annual inflation rate ticked down to 2.8 per cent in February, defying expectations
Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate edged down to 2.8 per cent in February.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
Toronto family doctor who called patient's body 'perfect' suspended for 3 months: tribunal
A family doctor in Toronto has been suspended for three months after a disciplinary tribunal found that he failed to follow proper protocols while examining a patient's breasts and made inappropriate comments about her body.