TORONTO — Zsofi Balasz hadn't even received her Canadian passport when she competed for her new country in the Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The open-water swimmer became a Canadian citizen just in time for the 2007 Games, having emigrated from Hungary with her parents and two siblings three years earlier.
The 24-year-old, who hopes to represent Canada again this summer, will help welcome 100 new citizens in a ceremony that coincides with the 100-day countdown to the Pan Am Games.
Today's citizenship ceremony is to be held at the newly-completed athletes' village near Toronto's waterfront.
The new Canadians hail from 58 countries, including 12 from the Americas.
Balasz says she wants to show them the opportunities they have, noting she owes her athletic career and her job as a police officer to the risk her parents took in moving to a country where they knew no one and didn't speak the language.
"To show up to a country where you don't have any connections and any relatives and everything's totally new, it was a risk that they took to make sure that we had the best," she said.
"Their strength for that — I admire it every day and I'm so thankful for it because I would not have what I have now if they didn't make that jump."
David Peterson, chair of the board for TO2015, said the event will "help celebrate our diversity," just like the Games aim to do.
