As she waved goodbye to 25-year-old Gunnar and 19-year-old Isabella outside their apartment in Girona, Spain on Tuesday, their mother, Lisa Holmgren, felt pride swell in her chest.
The siblings, from Orillia, Ont., hopped in a taxi and jetted off to the Olympics in Paris to compete in mountain biking, an experience like no other that they’ll share together.
“We’re just so happy that they get to do this and they get to represent Canada, and show everyone just how much they love this sport and each other,” Lisa Holmgren told CBC Sports. The Holmgrens are one of five sets of siblings who will compete on Team Canada at the Games.
Isabella will compete in women’s cross country on Sunday, and Gunnar will compete a day later in men’s cross country. They’ll race on Elancourt Hill, the highest point in the Paris region. Both races begin at 8 a.m. ET and will be streamed on CBC Gem, the CBC Olympics app and CBC Olympics website.
The entire Holmgren family will be together in Paris to watch them compete. With the five Holmgren siblings scattered around the world — Isabella’s twin sister, Ava, is also a competitive racer — it’s been close to a decade since everyone has been together for a Christmas.
This get-together will be extra special. They’ll celebrate Gunnar and Isabella achieving their Olympic dream, but also their other son, Max, who’s training to be a police officer and is about to have a birthday to remember.
“The thing that everyone’s looking forward to, I think I can speak for the family, is to be together,” Lisa Holmgren said.
On 2 wheels at a young age
From a young age, the five Holmgren children were always on bikes.
When they moved to Oro-Medonte, Ont., the family lived on the property of Hardwood Ski and Bike, giving their children kilometres of trails to explore on two wheels.
It’s a love they inherited from their parents. Lisa got hooked on the sport after joining the University of Toronto’s mountain bike team. On her first ride through the Don Valley, she crashed and hurt her arm.
She met her husband, Robert, through Ontario team racing, and the rest is history.
At age six, Gunnar told his parents he would win three Olympic gold medals. But they all thought those medals would be in figure skating, the sport Gunnar competed in at a high level until he was a teenager.
When he was 14, he came into the kitchen and told his parents he was done skating. He wanted to enter a Canada Cup mountain bike race.
“We were shocked,” Lisa Holmgren said. “We had no idea that was going through his mind. And from then on, I would say it was obvious that was his passion.”
Once he started, there was never any doubt in Lisa’s mind that Gunnar wanted to cycle for a living and represent Canada at the Olympics.
That inspired his two younger sisters, Isabella and Ava, who got to see their brother travel all over the world to compete. They decided they wanted to do it, too.
Cementing their spots in Paris
Their mother isn’t surprised to see Gunnar and Isabella heading to the Olympics. But she didn’t predict they’d have their first Olympic experience together.
Their father was at the race in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic, in May when Isabella won her under-23 World Cup debut, the last race on the calendar during the Olympic selection window.
“It was crazy as a first-year U23 to walk in and destroy the field like she did,” Robert Holmgren said. “It was an eyeopener, that’s for sure.”
A day later, Gunnar had a career-best eighth-place finish in his race in Czech Republic. That followed up the gold medal he won at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
Lisa Holmgren watched Gunnar’s race back home in Ontario that day before a family baby shower. Her mother and sister joined her.
“We had seen Isabella’s race the day before, and so we knew that they had a very good chance of going [to the Olympics] after their performances there,” she said.
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“It’s hard to put it in words, but really just happy for them because they put in so much work. And really happy that my husband could be there with them because that was just really special for the whole family.”
The team was officially announced last month, cementing the Holmgren siblings’ spots in Paris.
“I’m very proud to soon become an Olympian, and being selected alongside my sister makes it even more special,” Gunnar Holmgren said in a press release.
‘They really love what they’re doing’
Heading to Paris, the Holmgrens will have a sizeable contingent on hand to watch Isabella and Gunnar compete, including Robert’s uncle from Denmark and some friends.
Regardless of the outcome, they’re most proud of how kind their children are and how much they love their sport.
When their mother arrived in Girona ahead of their departure for Paris, neither Gunnar nor Isabella would let her cook or do dishes, knowing how much their parents have already done to help them on their journey.
“They have a unique quality in that they love to help others and they think of others, and they really love what they’re doing,” Lisa Holmgren said.
“It’s just a passion. So regardless of an outcome or a selection, they love to ride their bikes, and so they’re already successful in every way.”