With London 2012 in the rear-view mirror, it's time to look ahead at top Island prospects for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.
Yet, consider breakthrough young Island athletes at London - runner Cam Levins, rower Patricia Obee, swimmer Alec Page and bronze-medallists Gillian Carleton in cycling and Richard Weinberger in open-water swimming - weren't even on the radar for London 2012 when the 2008 Beijing Summer Games closed.
"In the fall, we get busy immediately planning for Rio," said Randy Bennett, Canadian Olympic team head swim coach, whose Victoria Swim Academy qualified seven swimmers for London 2012, including 1,500-metre silvermedallist Ryan Cochrane.
Here are 10 Islanders, who have not previously been to an Olympics, to look for on the road to Rio 2016:
1. WILL BROTHERS
(Swimming): Bennett points to this young swimmer - named to the Canadian team for the 2012 Junior Pan-Pacific Championships - as one to watch for Rio.
2. MATT SHARPE
(Triathlon): With 2012 London flagbearer Simon Whitfield now set to pass the torch, will this angular 2012 Canadian U-23 champion and 2010 Canadian junior champion be the one to carry it to Rio?
3. PHIL MACK (RUGBY):
Hardly a fresh new face on the Island sports scene, but the swift and dynamic captain of the Canadian men's rugby sevens team is new to the Olympics as sevens makes its debut at Rio 2016. On the women's sevens side, look to Barbara Mervin.
4. KAI LANGERFELD
(Rowing): The University of Victoria Vikes third-year puller from Parksville already has two silver medals from the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, not to mention the size at sixfootfive and the lineage with dad York Langerfield a former Olympic rower. Also watch for fellow 2011 Pan Am Games double silver-medallist Spencer Crowley of Lantzville.
5. SHANICE MARCELLE
(Beach Volleyball): The Spectrum grad from Victoria slices to the net like a knife and looks primed to make a run for the sands of Copacabana. So does G.P.
Vanier-grad Maverick Hatch from the Comox Valley on the men's side.
6. MADDIE SECCO
(Field Hockey): Coming out of Grade 12 at Oak Bay, and headed to Stanford this fall on a NCAA scholarship, Secco has already been capped on the senior national team - including earlier this year at the London Olympic qualifier in Delhi where sa国际传媒 fell short.
7. ADAM KEENAN
(Hammer): The 2011 sa国际传媒 high school male athlete of the year, out of Lambrick Park, is one of sa国际传媒's best young emerging field athletes.
8. ALLIE DELARGE
(Rowing): The Claremont grad is headed to the 2012 world junior championships in Bulgaria with Victoria crewmates Emily Lerhe, Jordan Watson and Isabella Watt and to the University of Washington Huskies in the fall. Watch out for this whole group, with Lerhe off to row at Boston University and Esquimalt High-grad Watson for Washington State, while Watt is only in Grade 12 at Oak Bay.
9. MARC HOWATSON
(Volleyball): Older brother Josh Howatson of Victoria fell one agonizing game short of qualifying for the London Olympics and now looks to junior national team sibling Marc, also a graduate of Oak Bay High, to move up to join him on the senior national team for the road to Rio.
10. CONOR MORGAN
(Basketball): Having made the Canadian U-18 team this summer coming out of Grade 12 at Mount Douglas, the six-foot-eight Morgan could be on the radar as new Canadian men's Olympic hoops chief Steve Nash looks to build to Rio.
