Vault, parallel, horizontal, floor.
If you, like most of the country, were glued to the Olympics this past summer, you marvelled at Ottawa’s own Sam Zakutney distinguishing himself at each of these demanding disciplines.
Your jaw likely dropped even more when you discovered how, due to a series of career-threatening injuries, he almost missed his time in his sport’s biggest, brightest spotlight. Dreams are slippery things; for athletes, they can be as tough to hold as a Still Ring.
In 2021, Zakutney, one of the stars of the first Canadian Men’s artistic gymnastics team to go to the Olympics since 2008, suffered his first major setback when he tore his ACL. Then, in 2023, he damaged a pectoral muscle.
“The ACL tear affected me in every way possible,” Zakutney confesses. “It made me question if my goal was delusional. The recovery was very long. Nearly a full year of stretching, strengthening, walking… it never seemed to end.”
“Then, at the 2023 Pan Am Championships, I felt a jolt and heard a pop. I got assessed by a doctor and I bawled on his shoulder. Still looking for a spot on the Canadian team, I thought my Olympic dream had ended.”
Within mere months, though, Zakutney had career-saving surgery, did a lot more rehab, and was cleared to hit the gym again. Told you dreams were tricky.
The Nepean-raised Zakutney was a restless kid obsessed with the neighbourhood monkey bars. His parents signed him up for gymnastic classes, where he discovered the trampoline. “Gymnastics made me feel superhuman,” he laughs. “I was not about to let that go.”
He didn’t. By the age of eight, he was competing in the National Capital program. He won event after event at both the provincial and national levels. He spent his high school years at the Ottawa Gymnastics Centre, where he developed a relationship with Oleksandr “Sasha” Zavadych, a former Ukrainian and Canadian Junior National Team Coach. Eventually, Zakutney was invited to represent Canada at the 2016 Olympic Test Event in Rio.
But another part of him felt that he was shortchanging himself. Looking to make good on his facility for math and science, he opted to go to Penn State. There, he could pursue a degree in biomedical engineering while continuing to compete.
Zakutney became a four-time NCAA All-American. He was the Big Ten freshman of the year for 2017, the 2019 Big Ten champion on parallel bars, and, in 2020, a finalist for college gymnastics’ highest honour: the Nissen-Emery Award.
After Penn, it was time to re-establish himself on home turf. In 2019, he swept the podium at the Canadian Championships. His Penn State teammates might not have been there to cheer him on, but the event was held in Ottawa: family and friends filled in.
That triumph could have proved a career climax. Not long after, the injuries began, threatening to rob Canada of what became a lasting memory on the international stage.
But by 2024, Zakutney was able to perform at the Canadian Championships, securing that much-vaunted spot on the first Canadian Olympic men’s artistic gymnastics team since 2008. “I made a full return to six events only a month before the championships,” Zakutney still marvels. “I knew I had given it everything I had. It was the show of a lifetime.”
That is, until the Olympics. There, despite the expected jitters, he helped the men’s team to an unprecedented 8th-place showing. “During qualification,” he recounts, “I don’t think had ever been more nervous in my life. But I accepted the odds and went into every performance with pride and confidence.”
While Zakutney was happy with his contribution, it wasn’t, by his own admission, the masterful performance he had given at the Canadian Nationals. When the team score came up a little shorter than expected, his heart stopped. In the end, though, Canada qualified.
“I had been given the chance to redeem myself,” Zakutney, who went on to perform admirably, gratefully recounts. And while he classifies those aforementioned Still Rings as the most difficult of his sport’s short routines, at the Olympics, it all came down to the pommel horse. “I finished the best I’ve ever done. When I landed, time froze. I looked at the crowd and beat my chest. I showed everyone who I am.”
But who might this proud Olympian be tomorrow?
His lifelong goal of being an Olympian behind him, it’s possible Zakutney will opt to follow in the footsteps of his father, the Senior VP of the Ottawa Heart Institute. Recently engaged, he might soon be planning a wedding.
But dreams, besides being tricky, tend to recur. “Who knows?” Zakutney speculates. “I might have another Olympics in me.”
Written by Dan Lalande
