MICHAEL SMITH/DECATHLON

For Canada's two-time commonwealth gold medalist in the decathlon, the run-up to Atlanta has been inspirational. In May, Michael Smith won a major competition in Gotzis, Austria, against such competitors as Erki Nool of Estonia (currently ranked No. 4 in the world); Smith also broke his own Canadian record with 8,626 points. Even better, he scored more than 900 points in each of the three throws--shot put, discus and javelin. No other decathlete has ever done that. Top Olympic contenders like U.S. world-record holder Dan O'Brien are swifter than Smith, but their throwing performances are their weak points.

Smith, 28, grew up in Kenora, Ont., playing basketball and football in school. He was recruited as a decathlete by the University of Toronto Track Club after he showed promise as a sprinter and long jumper, and at the 1986 world junior championships--only the third decathlon he had ever entered--he won silver. He won an even more impressive silver in the 1991 senior world championships and a bronze in 1995. "Mike is one of the most complete decathletes in the world," says Les Gramantik, Smith's coach. "Sooner or later, that will translate into gold."

ANNE MONTMINY/DIVING

Anne Montminy has a recurring nightmare. "the 10-m platform is at almost a 90 [degree] angle," she says, "and I'm trying not to slide off the end." A subconscious reference, perhaps, to lapses like the one she suffered in Barcelona at 17, when she fell apart on her last preliminary dive and finished 17th. But it's four years later, and the native of Pointe-Claire, Quebec, has changed. "I still have the dream," she says, "but I wake up wondering why I was so frightened."

In 1992 Montminy took the Canadian Olympic Association to court to win a slot at the Games; last May she finished first at the national Olympic trials in Victoria, B.C., despite a painful thumb fracture. She has developed one of the sport's most demanding dive lists, which earned her gold at the Commonwealth and Pan American games. As for Olympic pressure, "I've been there before," she says. "That's a definite strength."

GRANT CONNELL & DANIEL NESTOR/TENNIS DOUBLES

It says something about the world professional tennis tour that Grant Connell and Daniel Nestor have played together a grand total of three times. Vancouver-born Connell, 30, has ranked consistently in the men's doubles top 10. His longtime partner was Patrick Galbraith of the U.S. The duo reached the Wimbledon finals in 1993 and '94, and won the world doubles championships in 1995. This year, paired with Zimbabwean Byron Black, Connell has won the Italian Open and ranks third on the Association of Tennis Professionals' doubles lists. Nestor, 23, from Toronto, has been playing with Mark Knowles of the Bahamas. They won the German Open and are ranked fourth on the doubles circuit.

So what about the arranged Olympics marriage? "In doubles it's important that the two players mesh," says Connell. "Daniel and I get along great."

LORI SIPPEL/S0FTBALL

Lori Sippel, 31, is the fireballing right-hander who will lead Canada's team into the first Olympic women's softball tournament. She was raised on a farm near the hamlet of St. Paul's in southwestern Ontario. When not doing chores or windmilling balls against the barn, she spent summer evenings at St. Paul's neatly groomed ball field. She joined her first league at eight; the teams bore the names of vegetables. Sippel was a Turnip.

GUIVI SISSAOURI/WRESTLING

Her 102-km/h delivery soon lifted her into the big time. In 1981, at age 16, Sippel was recruited by the provincial-champion Mil-Dor Twins, an amateur women's all-star team. A year later, she was selected for the Canadian National Team. In the 1983 Pan American Games the 18-year-old reliever saved the final game, as Canada took gold from the favored U.S. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she stayed active in the game through three world championships and two more Pan Ams, where her teams picked up a silver and a bronze. All the while, she was hoping for her sport to be granted a place on the ultimate field of competition. "Softball has been recognized as a world event for several years now," says Sippel. "But people won't really recognize it until it's played for medals in the Olympic Games." She intends to be on the victor's podium when the serious recognition starts.

When Guivi Sissaouri was growing up in Soviet Georgia, wrestling was something of a local specialty. "There were even a couple of world champions in the same building where I lived in Tbilisi," says the stocky (57 kg) bantamweight. "I wanted to be like them."

"Gia" Sissaouri, 25, has just about reached that goal. "A lot of people at the world championships last year considered Gia the best because of his technique, the variety of his moves," says Russian-born coach Victor Zilberman, who is Canada's amateur-wrestling guru. Sissaouri started grappling at 10, and by 19 was a member of the Soviet team. When the Soviet Union crumbled in 1990, he headed for Canada and the Montreal Wrestling Club. Sissaouri earned silver at the 1995 world championships in Atlanta and gold at the 1996 Pan American championships in Cali, Colombia. But he takes nothing for granted. "If I get ahead," he says, "I will not give my opponent any chance."

LIJUAN GENG/TABLE TENNIS

At the Mrs. Vanelli's pizza franchise in Ottawa's Bayshore Shopping Centre, Lijuan Geng, one of the half a dozen top table-tennis players in the world, pounds disks of dough in perfect anonymity. Geng is part owner of the pizzeria and an additional shop besides. She is also a devoted mom--to son James, 18 months. On top of that, as Atlanta looms, she plays her sport five hours a day. Last year she won four gold medals at the Pan American Games and finished fifth at the world championships. "I'm still not very good," she says. "But I'm going to get better." Born in China in 1963, Geng was spotted as a hot table-tennis prospect at 13. In 1985 she won two golds and a silver at the world championships with a relentlessly attacking style. By 1988 she had defected to France. Geng soon married Horatio Pintea, a Canadian player she had met years before. They spent nearly four years in Germany playing professionally, earning enough to buy the Mrs. Vanelli's franchises.

DAVID DEFIAGBON/BOXING

As a Christian boy in the mostly Muslim town of Sapele, Nigeria, David Defiagbon was bullied at school and took up boxing to defend himself. The bullying stopped, but the boxing didn't; Defiagbon found his slenderness and long arms could be an advantage. Fully 195 cm tall, he joined the Nigerian boxing team as a welterweight (67 kg), and at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in New Zealand, rained down blows on opponents from afar. Despite an ungainly style, Defiagbon won the gold medal.

Persistence pays. A chance 1989 meeting with Canada coach Taylor Gordon, whose boxing team was touring Nigeria, led to another meeting a year later in Auckland, then another and another. By the time of the Barcelona Olympics, Defiagbon "was begging and begging," recalls Wayne Gordon, Taylor's son and Defiagbon's current coach, for the chance to come to Canada. He was still a 71-kg "stick," Gordon says. The coach sent him an airline ticket, but on his way to the airport, Defiagbon was arrested by Nigerian authorities, who took a dim view of their champion's departure. He was repeatedly flogged in jail with heavy cables before bribing his way out and reaching Canada in September 1992.

No one calls Defiagbon ungainly anymore--or skinny. A solid 90 kg, he now glides fluidly, dealing out thunderous power with his right hand, rather than bouncing awkwardly around the ring. Reports Gordon: "He's knocked out a lot of people with just one punch." Defiagbon is a strong medal prospect in Atlanta, though he may need luck along with that new power and fluidity to overcome top contender Felix Savon of Cuba. Posing with his wrapping tapes above, Defiagbon exudes confidence. "I've been to the Olympics several times but this is different," he says. "This time I want to make sure I win a medal for Canada."

NICOLAS GILL/JUDO

When Nicolas Gill defeated favored Hirotaka Okada of Japan to clinch a bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics, there was not a Canadian journalist in the arena. But by the time he emerged from doping control to collect his medal, he was mobbed. It was Canada's first medal of the Games, and the gritty middleweight (86 kg) judoka learned what it meant to be an instant celebrity. This time the pressure is on well before the Games start--but Gill, 24, is ready: he has collected a silver and a bronze medal at two world championships since Barcelona. "I always told myself," he says, "that in '96 I would be in my prime."

Montreal-born Gill started judo at age 6 and won the second tourney he entered. In 1990, at 17, he was selected for the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand but lost in the first round. Gill prepared for the Atlanta Games in Japan, where there are plenty of high-caliber opponents. He tore a tendon in his big toe, but two months later, he was back honing his style, which he can only describe as tenacious. "I'm not much better than lots of other judoka," he says pragmatically, "but I'm more aggressive, more determined to win."

BEV SMITH/BASKETBALL

Her teammates call her grandma. at 36, Bev Smith has cartilage trouble in her knees and arthritis in her back. "It doesn't surprise me anymore," says the 1.85-m-tall guard, "when something new is sore." That's the pain; then there's the gain. Smith has played 18 years of international-level basketball, the most--by one year--on a team full of veterans, and the experience comes in handy. She and her cohort average more than seven years apiece in international play, and all but one play professionally in Europe.

But Smith's longevity and doggedness stand out. At 20, she started for Canada at the 1979 world championships, won a bronze medal and earned a spot on the tournament all-star team. By 1984 she was already a veteran on the squad that finished a frustrating fourth at the Los Angeles Games. Then came a long stint in the Italian pro league, and in 1993 a much heralded return to the national team. "We're a small team," Smith says, "and physically we're not the most talented. But we use our experience to win." Go, Granny, go!