'The dream is real': Canadian flag football duo believes sport will grow further with '28 Olympic debut

“A dream that hasn’t sunk in” is how quarterback Sara Parker describes a fourth flag football world title by Canada’s senior women, their first since 2014, and a spot in the 2028 Summer Olympics.

“So much pride,” she said, while looking at the championship trophy eight days after a 27-20 win over the United States at the International Federation of American Football competition in Düsseldorf, Germany. “Everyone that had an impact on myself and my teammates … we worked so hard for this. It’s an incredible reward for all the hard work.”

Visiting CBC Sports headquarters Monday in Toronto along with Canadian national senior men’s team player Guillaume Béland, it was not lost on Parker what the achievement could mean for the future of flag football ahead of its Olympic debut in Los Angeles.

At 26, she has already played an integral role in the sport. She started programs from scratch in high school, last year at Champlain College Saint Lambert — an English-language college in Quebec that inducted her into its Hall of Fame — and at Concordia University in her native Montreal.

Parker and Béland celebrate as both Canadian teams qualify for flag football in LA28 Olympics

Champlain College went undefeated in its first year and was promoted to the top tier from the fourth division. In 2000, while enrolled at Concordia during the COVID pandemic in 2000, Parker used her downtime to begin plans for a Quebec-based university flag football league that launched the following year.

“Now that the path is clear, and we also have the recognition of the Olympics,” she told CBC Sports' Donnovan Bennett, “[the sport] is going to continue to grow. It’s going to allow kids to dream about being Olympians. [The fact] Canada qualified [for the