Canada welcomes return of athletes following 2026 Winter Olympics

Canada’s top athletes are being welcomed with open arms as they touch down on Canadian soil Monday evening.

With the winter games in Milano Cortina now over, many Olympians are on some of the returning flights at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

By no surprise, there were plenty of family and friends on standby, ready to embrace their loved ones with a hero’s welcome.

More than 200 athletes participated in the winter games in Italy.

Many come home with success stories, but all of them arrived with their heads held high.

The first flight was scheduled to land at 4:51 p.m., which included a few local Olympians: some members of Canada’s women’s hockey team, including Burlington’s Emma Maltais, Renata Fast; and skier Evan McEachran of Oakville.

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“Feels good to be back on Canadian soil, it’s been nearly a month I’ve been gone for, so it’s been nice to get home. I just feel some of the Canadian pride, some excitement that we’ve been feeling from afar, but now to be home it’s great,” said Brett Gallant of Canada’s men’s curling team, who showed off his gold medal in front of the crowd.

“Our Canadian team: we really gained some momentum — it seemed like through the middle of the games and towards the end and the medals seem to be coming in: multiple medals every day, so it was pretty exciting,” said Gallant.

The amount of Canadians walking around, the crowd of people holding flags up and just wishing us ‘good luck’ and just, yeah, I’m extremely grateful for all of it,” said St. Catharines native and Hamilton Tiger-Cats receiver Keaton Bruggeling.

A second flight also touched down at Toronto’s airport, which included members of the Canadian bobsled teams.

There were roughly 14 athletes from our regions competing at this year’s winter games.

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