As the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina unfold, the world is once again turning its gaze to the podium. But for most nations, the importance of the Olympics extends well beyond medals.

The Games are a place where nations tell stories about themselves: who belongs, who represents them and how secure that nation feels in the world. National sporting events offer a way to make abstract ideas like sovereignty and belonging visible.

As humanities scholar Homi K. Bhabha argues in his book on nationhood, nations are not fixed entities, but are continually retold, like stories. The Olympics provide one of the most visible stages for nations to shape narratives about themselves.

At a time when Canada and other countries are feeling pressure about their sovereignty, the Olympic Games are taking on heightened symbolic meaning.

But Indigenous athletes, in particular, reveal the limits of using sport to perform national unity, and show how multiple sovereignties continue to exist within “Team Canada.”

One of the earliest Canadian sports stories ever told was explicitly about forging something new under the weight of empire. In 1867, days after Confederation, a working-class crew from Saint John, New Brunswick, competed in rowing at the Paris Exhibition, a world’s fair held in France.

The “Paris Crew” quickly became a national symbol, not just because they won, but because the victory felt like a young country holding its own against an older imperial world.........

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