Simon Whitfield carries the Canadian flag into the Olympic stadium

Whitfield, a former gold and silver medalist, will have lots of time to enjoy his moment in the spotlight. That's because his event takes place on August 7.

Whitfield grew up in Kingston and moved to Australia at the age of 17, where he honed his skills in his sport.

His mentor was Greg Bennett, a top-ranked triathlete.

"Greg would ask me if I wanted to go for a training run with him, and I’d tell him no,” Whitfield jokes on his website. "Then after he’d leave I would go search his bag, steal his training log and learn as much as I could."

He won the gold in Sydney in 2000, and followed that up with a remarkable silver-medal-winning performance in the Beijing Games in 2008.