Summer Olympics

With the Paris Games set to wrap up with Sunday's closing ceremony, ��Ƶ alumna Kylie Masse says she’s proud to have secured her place in history as the first Canadian swimmer to win an individual Olympic medal in three consecutive Games, CBC reports.

Masse, who graduated from the ��Ƶ Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education in 2019, took home the bronze in the women's 200-metre backstroke final in Paris last week, adding to her impressive medal collection.

Masse first ascended the podium during her Olympic debut in Rio in 2016, clinching bronze in the 100-metre backstroke. She earned both individual and team accolades at the previous Summer Games in Tokyo, capturing silver in the women’s 100-metre and 200-metre backstroke events, alongside a bronze in the women’s 4x100-metre medley relay.

In addition to her third-place win in Paris, Masse also achieved fourth-place finishes in the 100-metre backstroke and 4x100-metre team medley.

"To really be on the podium here was my goal," Masse told CBC. "But it's also such a dream to … know that I've kind of etched my name in history."

Masse was joined by four fellow Varsity Blues alumni at the Summer Games, including badminton star Michelle Li, volleyball player Heather Bansley, and track and field competitors Jazz Shukla and Lucia Stafford.

U of T talent will also be on display at the upcoming Paralympic Games, which run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8, with former Blues rower Alina Dumas representing Brazil as the coxswain of its PR3 coxed four crew.

2016 moments we loved at U of T

Romi Levine — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:44:01 +0000

2016 moments we loved at U of T

Romi Levine Tue, 12/20/2016 - 11:44

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U of T's Rosie MacLennan winning gold at the Rio Olympics was one of the highlights of 2016 (photo by David Ramos via Getty Images)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

��Ƶ

Research & Innovation

Citizen Lab

Summer Olympics

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Olympic medals, pop culture royalty, jaw-dropping research and everything in between

We cheered on our Olympic athletes, made scientific breakthroughs deep in the Earth and high above the clouds, became Instagram famous and cooked up a storm.

To say 2016 has been an eventful year would be an understatement.

Here are just a few of the amazing things ��Ƶ students, faculty, staff and alumni have gotten up to in the past year.

Kylie Masse wins bronze in the women's 100-metre backstroke at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

The gold standard

U of T’s incredible athletes made a big impression at the Olympic Games in Rio this summer with alumna and student Rosie MacLennan successfully defending her gold in trampoline, and Varsity Blues swimmer Kylie Masse, a student in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education winning bronze in the women’s 100-metre backstroke. U of T alumna Shelley Gautier scored a bronze medal for Canada in paracycling at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Vice-President and Principal of U of T Scarborough, Bruce Kidd, an Olympian himself, said he’s incredibly proud of the athletes continuing the university’s Olympic legacy.

“It’s been thrilling to watch U of T students and alumni compete so brilliantly, courageously.”

The university's grads were once again among the world's more employable – and U of T's impact on the world stage, from ground-breaking research to innovative teaching propelled it to the top of global rankings lists.

And who can forget the incredible achievements of U of T faculty like Deborah Cowen, whose work spanning urban planning and politics, citizenship, contested spaces and social justice, earned her a prestigious Trudeau Fellowship and Professor Molly Shoichet, a world-renowned researcher and leader in the use of biomaterials to enhance stem cell delivery for treating disease conditions from stroke to blindness, who received the Till & McCulloch Award.

Twenty-five U of T researchers were named as Canada Research Chairs this year. A majority –16 of them – were women.

The Weeknd helped to raise money for the university’s efforts to create Ethiopian studies. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images for Hangout Music Festival)

A dose of pop culture

U of T earned some pop culture cred this year with two alumni starring in some of this year’s biggest TV shows – David Sutcliffe, who plays Rory’s dad on Gilmore Girls spoke to U of T News writer Geoffrey Vendeville about his time at U of T and what college he thinks his on-screen daughter would have attended.

Kim’s Convenience’s Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, reflected on his time at U of T’s drama program. He said his first year “ignited inside of me a passion for the performing arts that I’d never had before.”

We were incredibly thankful for Grammy-award winning star The Weeknd’s $50,000 donation, which will help U of T launch Ethiopian studies.

Remember Pokémon GO? Students, staff and faculty – across the three campuses – spent some of the hottest summer days glued to their phones, trying to catch the monsters that popped up on their screens. Crowds huddled around U of T PokéStops – locations where players could download items to help in their quest – and lures, stops that attracted Pokémon, and those hunting them.

U of T even made an appearance in Hello Magazine when their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway paid a visit to Hart House as part of their four-day trip to Canada. We also had a visit from the first female president of Croatia.

Mike Babcock, head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, dropped by OISE to share leadership lessons with educators.

And don’t forget about the time Drake visited the U of T Scarborough campus…well, kind of.

This map shows how genes interact in groups to shed light on the genetic roots of diseases.

Awe-inspiring research

The year began with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touring the lab of U of T's Peter Zandstra, executive director of Medicine by Design, to announce a $20-million grant to back commercialization of stem cell research by U of T and its partners. (And before the year was up, the commercialization of stem cell research was winning major backing from the private sector.)

This was a year of incredible discoveries from signs of life kilometres underground by Earth Sciences Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar to U of T research by Associate Professor Harald Pfeiffer and his team at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) playing an instrumental role in the detection of gravitational waves in space.

We even questioned whether dinosaurs were able to pucker up through research by U of T Mississauga palaeontologist Robert Reisz.

The “hacktivist hothouse” that is U of T’s Citizen Lab continued making headlines from Vanity Fair to The New York Times and CNN International about abuses of power online, including being the subject of a Canadian documentary, Black Code.

U of T’s massive project to sequence the whole genomes of 10,000 people per year will help us understand complex diseases while a new map visualizes the genetic network of a cell. And who could forget the beating heart on a chip and Canada's first hand and forearm transplant.

Scientists and environmentalists at the university took some serious steps to tackle climate change. While researchers helped to solve the puzzle of converting CO₂ emissions to fuel, experts attended the “Woodstock of carbon dioxide” to figure out how to save the planet. U of T Scarborough's Nick Eyles also explored the California drought for the CBC and researchers have discovered “superstar” varieties of rice that can reduce fertilizer loss and cut down on environmental pollution in the process.

U of T Mississauga Assistant Professor Jennifer Stellar found the power of positivity can go a long way – and it’s good for your health. Another U of T study found that an enagement ring's value drops if there's an “unhappily ever after.” But be warned, the better you feel about your partner, the higher the risk to your sexual health.

Engineering PhD student Justin Kim has built nine robots not much larger than a thumb that exhibit “swarm intelligence.” (photo by John Guatto)

Clever bots

From a swarm of tiny robots that could be used to save lives to a smartphone that could tell you if you’re having a bad hair day, students and faculty at U of T are on the front lines of innovation when it comes to robotics and artificial intelligence.

So it's not surprising that the best and brightest gathered at U of T to ponder the future of AI at the Machine Learning and the Market for Intelligence conference – including everyone’s favourite astronaut Chris Hadfield.

“The sky is not the limit," he said. "I’ve lived above the sky, and I know it’s just the start of our opportunities.”

But don’t worry, U of T experts say we don’t have to surrender to the robots just yet.

If you’re planning on belting out some carols during the holiday season, let this U of T created program help you turn your favourite photos into a jolly sing-a-long.

Hosting a New Year's Eve dinner party and want the perfect wine and cheese pairing? There’s a U of T made algorithm for that.

U of T alumni Karimah Gheddai and Shaimaa Atef are city builders to watch. (Photo by Romi Levine)

In the 6ix

Toronto Life came to U of T experts when they wanted to envision what the city would look like in 50 years. Denser and more diverse was the answer.

U of T’s mapping experts told incredible stories about Toronto’s waterways, highways, schools, access to food and jobs.

A new generation of city builders was hard at work ensuring that Toronto stays liveable as it continues to grow at warp speed.

And a group of U of T ethnographers watched the city change through the eyes of shop owners and residents in Kensington Market while a group of U of T students was busy making sure Syrian newcomers felt at home.

All three campuses kept a local focus with a new social procurement policy while cooking up some gourmet, locally-sourced food to satisfy U of T foodies.

At U of T's downtown Toronto campus, Convocation Hall played host as 500 new citizens were sworn in. Convocation ceremonies brought stars like Dick Pound, the international face of the fight against doping, and Degrassi’s Linda Schuyler to U of T.

We also had several visits by elected officials from all three levels of government such as federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Premier Kathleen Wynne, Mayor John Tory and Science Minister Kirsty Duncan.

At U of T Scarborough, The Environmental Science and Chemistry Building has been recognized as the gold standard for sustainable building design.

And, after much public consulation, the university chose a winning team to transform the downtown Toronto campus. Get ready, Toronto, for a more pedestrian-friendly campus with parking headed underground at King’s College Circle.

Do you have a favourite moment of 2016? We’d love to hear about it!

U of T athletes make big impression at #Rio2016

lavende4 — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:20:07 +0000

U of T athletes make big impression at #Rio2016

lavende4 Mon, 08/22/2016 - 12:20

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Team Canada members participate in #Rio2016 Closing Ceremonies (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Subheadline

“It’s been thrilling to watch U of T students and alumni compete so brilliantly, courageously,” says Bruce Kidd

It was a wild ride in Rio at this year’s Summer Olympic Games.

Team Canada’s stellar performance earned us 22 medals – including four gold medals – showcasing the country’s more established athletes and rising stars like swimmer Penny Olesiak and sprinter Andre De Grasse.

��Ƶ’s league of Olympians made a big impression in Rio with 12 students and alumni competing for Canada.

Rosie MacLennan made a triumphant return to the Games, winning gold in trampoline. The Rio flag bearer is a U of T alumna and student of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE). She was also Canada’s only gold medalist at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Read Bruce Kidd’s discussion about investing in athletic excellence

U of T alumni and staff are also playing an important role in Rio as volunteers on Canada’s Health Services Team and on the tennis court.

Rio was also the stage for U of T experts weighing in on everything Olympics.

Greg Wells, assistant professor of kinesiology and physical education, gave insight into what makes track star Andre De Grasse so fast.

Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at U of T, Richard Florida, argues that if we take into account additional factors like population and economy size, Canada’s Olympic ranking would be much lower.

Alternatively, professor of engineering Timothy Chan says if you look at Canada’s performance based on population per capita, we’re doing better than top ranked nations like China and the US.

While athletic achievement was the clear focus of the games, Rio can’t seem to escape controversy – from the mysteriously green diving pool to whether or not American swimmer Ryan Lochte and fellow Team USA athletes were robbed at gunpoint.

U of T Urban Studies assistant professor, teaching stream, David Roberts says the pushback from Brazilian authorities who claimed the Lochte incident was fabricated was likely an attempt to save the Games from a public relations nightmare.

“High profile street crime is never a good thing for a city trying to solidify itself as a global tourist destination,” he says.

Though international media has fixated on the hiccups surrounding the games, the social and political climate in Brazil is largely ignored, says Roberts.

“What I have not seen in the mainstream press is much focus on the tens of thousands of people who were displaced to build Olympic infrastructure or much about the social impacts of the new policing techniques that have been adopted for the games and their long term implications among the various other ways that hosting the Olympic Games is likely to exacerbate social injustices in Rio,” he says.

But long after the Olympic torch is extinguished, the people of Rio will endure the Games’ lasting legacy.

“Hosting the Olympics will leave Rio with some shiny new sports infrastructure and some new hotels, but also a lot of debt and some serious questions about whether the money may have been better spent on other things to improve the lives of average Brazilians,” says Roberts.

U of T urban expert on Rio Olympics: “I don’t think any city is ever fully prepared”

lavende4 — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 14:38:35 +0000

U of T urban expert on Rio Olympics: “I don’t think any city is ever fully prepared”

lavende4 Sat, 07/30/2016 - 10:38

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Aerial view of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games' Beach Volleyball Arena at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, taken on July 26, 2016 (photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Research & Innovation

Opening ceremonies are set to begin a week from today but the road to the Rio Olympics has been nothing short of rocky.

The threat of the Zika virus – which has prompted some athletes to pull out of the Games – still looms. The sewage-filled venue for some water sports, Guanabara Bay, was never cleaned up as promised. And, as so often seems to be the case in the final days counting down to the Games, the Athletes Village is still a work-in-progress. Add to all of this the existing social inequality and political unrest in the country.

Will Rio be ready for the Olympics? U of T News asked David Roberts, assistant professor, teaching stream, in urban studies at the ��Ƶ. His research focuses on the impact of mega-events on a city and its urbanization.

In 2014, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member visiting the Olympics site in Rio said the preparations were the “worst ever.” Are they?
It’s hard to know what the worst-prepared city is because they said that as well for pretty much every mega-event, whether it’s the Olympics or the World Cup. I think it’s pretty obvious that there are some things that aren’t quite up to snuff in Rio – the Athletes Village seems to be only half-done just a few days before the Games and there’s sewage in the bay.

But I don’t think any city is ever fully prepared. And that’s part of the challenge of the whole thing.

Remarkably, cities and countries are able to rise to the occasion and what I think we’ll see is, as soon as the Games start, most of the media coverage will switch from lack of preparation or fear of disease or fear of violence and whatever else to the competition. These Games are really well orchestrated to capture that type of attention and draw attention away from all the other sorts of things that are happening.

I’m sure we’ll see some reports here and there about athletes getting sick or criticizing some aspect of the preparations like we saw in Sochi for example, but for the most part I think our coverage will be about the nationalistic celebration of sport.

There’s a heightened fear of terror attacks in the Western world – what are the security implications for the Rio Olympics?
It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening in Rio itself for various reasons. One, we don’t get as much news about Brazil and Rio as we do about other parts of the world – especially English-language news. Two, the political unrest makes it hard to get any official news that’s reliable.

Beyond that, it’s not the same space in which we’re seeing terrorism play out in Europe in particular and the Middle East.

Sure, the threat of violence is contemporarily something we have to deal with globally, but I’m not entirely sure what that means for Rio. If anything, Rio is prepared on the security front – they’ve spent tons of money on security. They showed in the World Cup two years ago that they have that capacity and mindset. Usually places that are hosting these events are in such a lockdown they are quite secure.

(Below: Brazilian Marine personnel patrol during training sessions for rowing teams at Lagoa Stadium venue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 29, 2016 / photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images)

Will the infrastructure spending leading up to the Olympics in Rio benefit the city in the future?
It’s hard to make the case that the long-term benefits will reap rewards that will pay them back for that amount of spending.

These spectacles have gotten to the point where they’re so expensive and so targeted at specific areas within the city – rather than the city as a whole – that the rewards are quite uneven and don’t match up, ever, to the spending that takes place and the host.

The owners of games (whether the IOC or FIFA) are quite adept at extracting their cut of the pie out of the whole system. Even if there is television revenue, a lot of that’s going back to these international organizations – and not into the communities there.

Some people will benefit a lot but it’ll likely be the “haves” of Rio society.

So why on earth do these cities do it?
That’s a great question. Part of it is the challenge to become recognized as a world class city. Whatever that might mean – keeping up with the Joneses or establishing oneself as a destination for tourists or business investment – is really a pressing concern of a lot of different cities.

We could ask that same question as to why Toronto would ever want to host the Olympics. What would be the benefit from all that expending? Maybe we can get some extra money for infrastructure. And it may be able to raise our profile – but to what end? I don’t think that’s ever really spelled out.

If you’re a politician wanting to put your stamp on a city, then that’s something you’re interested in, but in terms of social benefits, they never seem to play out.

It’s very much based on short-term thinking rather than any sort of long-term assessment of what might be good for Rio or any other city that’s hosting these things going forward. It’s especially a challenge when cities are faced with high levels of inequality and high levels of uneven development within a city.

It’s one thing for London to host an event because they have much of the infrastructure already there so they’re not spending as much initially to host an event, but even then it’s a risky gamble. it’s quite another when you’re dealing with a city that has some basic needs that should be taken care of and real stark inequality on the ground that this seems to only exacerbate.

(Below: the International Road Cycling competition in Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil served as a test for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games TASSO MARCELO/AFP/Getty Images)

Is it irresponsible for the IOC and other sporting organizations to grant these cities the ability to host these mega-events?
That is a really thorny question because for a long time the Olympics and the World Cup were all pretty much hosted in developed countries – in Europe and North America with a couple of exceptions. There was a strong critique by other parts of the world that say it really narrows who can take advantage of this opportunity. So there’s a huge critique about the fact that there was never a mega-event in Africa or the Middle East and it had been decades and decades since Central or South America hosted one.

The problem I think, ultimately, is that the formula didn’t change. The IOC and FIFA expect the same games no matter where it is in the world and don’t take into account the local context. Not only is the funding formula the same for a rich country and a developing country, so are the expectations of infrastructure and everything else.

A better question is – if we want these giant events to continue and we think it’s a good idea to have them in every corner of the globe, what can we do to make sure they don’t damage the local community, they don’t exacerbate inequality and they don’t negatively impact the ways of life of a lot of people?

There’s enough money there that FIFA and IOC don’t have to extract billions of dollars of profit if they host these games. If they had a more equitable structure, there might be a way of doing that.

How do you make those changes when these big sporting bodies aren’t willing to change their ways?
I think it’s through activism, I think it’s through political lobbying. I think it’s through pressuring some changes in law, since [IOC and FIFA] are both recognized as non-profits so they don’t pay any taxes. And I think it’s also in terms of activism from both athletes and consumers.

If we as consumers choose to not watch or choose to find other ways to influence the games – such as not supporting the sponsors – then change would probably happen a lot quicker.

But it’s rare to get a large enough group of people to boycott something – enough to make an impact.
That’s the effective power of these types of events – they tap into all kinds of things. They tap into our love of competition, our benevolent nationalism, they tap into excitement – they give us a collective thing to celebrate. There are a lot of reasons why the stories about inequality, disease and pollution go out the window as soon as these events start. It’s because what the news media and what we’re going to be talking about by the proverbial water cooler are the sporting events themselves rather than the context which they’re being staged.

One of the things I’m interested in is how these events are as much played out on television as anywhere else – and how adept planning departments have gotten at staging television events rather than urban events.

You clean up the parts that are going to be on TV and you make really nice parts of the city. You have this really uneven development that’s designed to look good on television and when you get there you realize it’s no different than any other television set – it’s quite thin in terms of its relevance to everyday life.

Summer Olympics

'Etched my name in history': Kylie Masse talks to CBC about winning bronze at Paris Olympics

Read more about Kylie Masse at CBC

2016 moments we loved at U of T

The gold standard

A dose of pop culture

Awe-inspiring research

Clever bots

In the 6ix

U of T athletes make big impression at #Rio2016

Read more about Rosie here

Read more about Kylie here

Read Bruce Kidd’s discussion about investing in athletic excellence

U of T urban expert on Rio Olympics: “I don’t think any city is ever fully prepared”