Gavin Schmitt, who is a dominant force for Canada, is coming back from surgery on his left shin that forced him to miss the regional Olympic qualifications where Canada fell just short.Ludmila Mitrega/Getty Images
In January, when Canada's men's volleyball team was poised to win a spot in the Summer Olympics for the first time in 24 years, the squad was without its star player, Gavin Schmitt.
Canada was confident, even with Schmitt out injured and set for surgery. The regional qualification tournament was on home court in Edmonton and in the must-win finals, to score a ticket to Rio de Janeiro, the opponent was a lower-ranked team: Cuba, a country Canada had defeated five times in a row.
But when it counted, Canada was scotched by Cuba in three straight sets.
The loss upended the 2016 calendar, for Schmitt and the team. Schmitt had expected to have half a year to recovery from surgery on his left shin, which involved a rod inserted into his tibia to deal with a worsening stress fracture.
But after the loss to Cuba, Canada was punted into a last-chance Olympics qualification tournament scheduled for May 28 to June 5 in Tokyo. Canada is one of eight countries chasing three available spots to go to Rio in August.
Schmitt, at 30, knew this could be his last, best chance to lead Canada – a country on the rise in men's volleyball – to the Olympics. The 6-foot-10 outside hitter – a key offensive position in volleyball – undertook an accelerated rehabilitation regime at the Fortius Sport & Health facility in the Vancouver suburbs.
Schmitt was able to build strength in his leg while it healed by using specialized equipment such as an underwater treadmill where he could run and jump. The water reduced his effective body weight, lightening the load on his left leg. Three months of work, concluding this past week, was deemed a success and Schmitt now heads to Ottawa as the team gathers at the national training centre to prepare for their quest for Rio.
Rehab went well but the repetitive tedium of a similar routine each day was also a grind. "You go through down days, where you have to think – me at 30 – contemplating, is it worth it to continue playing?" Schmitt said.
Schmitt is a top-level pro, making several hundred thousand dollars each year. He was the best player in the South Korean league when he was there from 2009 to 2012. Last year he won a championship in Turkey. In rehab, the Olympics opportunity drove him.
"I'm not sure," Schmitt said, "I'll get another shot."
Canada is not a volleyball country. In the 13 Summer Olympics since the sport was first included in 1964, Canada's men's team has made it only three times. The best showing was in 1984, when Canada finished fourth. The powers of the sport are Russia, Brazil and Italy, who together have won eight of the nine medals in the past three Olympics. All three are countries home to competitive professional leagues.
A decade ago, however, Canada's climb from volleyball obscurity began. Glenn Hoag, a player on the strong national team of the 1980s, signed on as coach in 2006 and a national training centre was established. Hoag instilled international-level standards of defence, serving and receiving.
Around the same time, Schmitt was finishing college in Red Deer, Alta. He had only started playing volleyball in Grade 12. He didn't know he could make a living playing pro. In 2007, Schmitt was first named to the national team and soon thereafter started his pro career in Greece.
Hoag was an essential mentor for Schmitt, whose career flourished, and the national team started to make gains. Support came from the not-for-profit organization Own The Podium, whose team-sport strategy provides money with a longer-term eye, rather than on an immediate medal.
Canada is not strong in traditional summer team sports. The women's soccer bronze in 2012 was Canada's first Summer Games team medal since a men's basketball silver in 1936.
Hoag's team has received about $1-million per fiscal year from Own The Podium, or roughly about one-sixth of the team-sport money available, since 2013.
It's been invested in support staff and technology. Tools include devices to measure how often and how high athletes jump, how hard they serve and iPad software that uses video to instantly analyze any game situation.
Canada kept cracking through internationally. In 2013, Canada was fifth in World League play. In 2014, Canada was seventh at the world championships.
Possibly as a measure of the ambition, when Canada lost the semi-finals at last summer's Pan Am Games to Argentina – a match the team felt it should have won – the feelings were raw afterward. "We're a bunch of choke artists, that's all it is," Gord Perrin said.
Today, Canada is ranked No. 10 in the world. For the tournament in Tokyo, Canada is in the middle of the pack. The top countries will be No. 2 Poland, No. 8 Iran, and No. 10 France. The rest are: No. 13 Australia, No. 14 Japan, at home, No. 19 China, and No. 20 Venezuela.
It is a seven-game, round-robin tournament, played over nine days.
Health is a big question. Schmitt is still convalescing – feeling about 85 per cent – and several others are dealing with injury issues. "We are going to need to have them healthy," Hoag said. "We have a few key players that we really need. Without them, it makes things difficult."
Schmitt is the pillar. At the Pan Ams, he led the team in scoring. He scored 25 points in the semi-finals and again in the bronze medal game. But in the semis, he succeeded in only half his spikes. For bronze, he hammered more than two-thirds for points.
"Gavin," Hoag said, "is one of the best international opposites that there is on the planet."
For his part, Schmitt is confident. "It's very achievable," he said of making it to Rio. "We need all our guys healthy – and get playing well together in a short amount of time, which can sometimes be a struggle for us. We can do it. We've beat a lot of the teams that are there. It's a matter of doing it again."