Commanders’ Benjamin St-Juste cheering from afar as Anna Hall competes at Olympic Games

ASHBURN, Va. — Don’t blame Benjamin St-Juste if he’s suffering through significant Olympics FOMO (fear of missing out).

The Washington Commanders cornerback is focused on the 2024 NFL season while keeping track of the Paris Games. Any fear of missing out goes beyond the excitement with the current quadrennial cycle.

St-Juste’s sister-in-law, Anna Hall, is competing in the heptathlon. She is ranked No. 1 in the world after winning the U.S. Olympic trials. Taylor Swift is aware. Roughly 30 family and friends are expected in the City of Light to support the 2023 World Championship’s silver medalist — with two notable exceptions.

“Julia, my wife, and I are the only two not going,” St-Juste said.

Their excuses are justifiable, even if Hall is poised for a massive comeback. The two-day heptathlon competition began Thursday at roughly 4 a.m. ET. The 100-meter hurdles is the first of seven events overall. Julia St-Juste could set an alarm to watch her 23-year-old younger sister. No need. She’ll likely be awake regardless, tending to the couple’s 3-week-old baby girl, Noella. Her husband’s day job makes live viewing challenging. The Commanders are in New Jersey for the first of two football days this week against the New York Jets.

Thursday’s joint practice in torrential rain at the Jets’ facility concludes in time for St-Juste to, in theory, “pop my iPad open and cheer for my sister-in-law” as Hall battles in the third (shot put) and fourth (200-meter race) events of the day. Washington’s prep continues before Saturday’s preseason game at MetLife Stadium.

Hall broke her foot in the 2021 trials, ending the three-time U.S. champion’s first Olympic attempt. Undergoing knee surgery in January threatened the follow-up try. Winning in Paris would make Hall the first American to earn Olympic gold since Jackie Joyner-Kersee went back to back in 1988 and 1992. She told Time Magazine that snagging Olympic gold is “kind of my duty if I want to make heptathlon well known in America.”

finally i can breathe, WE ARE GOING TO PARIS ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

— Anna Hall (@annaahalll) June 25, 2024

Four years from now, life may align in St-Juste’s favor so that he can help grow football in his home country. The 2028 Games in Los Angeles will include the debut of flag football, and the Canadian is genuinely curious about the possibility of participating.

“Depending on where I’m at in my career, if it’s doable to qualify with the Canadians, that would be dope,” St-Juste said following a recent home practice.

The Montreal native grew up playing hockey and soccer and discovered tackle football, but not flag football, which will be an official sport in the 2028 Los Angeles Games. The sport’s popularity spiked north of the American border in recent years. Canada’s women’s team won the bronze medal at the 2023 Americas Continental Flag Football Championship in Charlotte, N.C., while the men’s squad fell in the bronze medal match.

“This is great for the sport,” St-Juste said. “That’s what we’re missing: the fact that we have to have all this equipment (for tackle football). It’s expensive and a little bit harder (to grow the game). Now, with flag football, everybody can play.”

The NFL broadly promotes flag football for men, women, boys and girls. This week, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts starred in a new commercial about the 2028 Games. Kansas City Chiefs three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Patrick Mahomes has said he “definitely” would want in, even though there are no “linemen blocking for you” in the five-member team sport.

“I’ll be 31, 32 years old, so if I can still move around then, I’m going to try to get out there and throw the football around, maybe in LA. Just don’t tell Coach (Andy) Reid or (GM Brett) Veach or anybody,” Mahomes joked.

St-Juste, Washington’s fourth-year corner and projected starter, would be 30 in the summer of 2028. Barring injury, that’s hardly retirement age. There’s also no guarantee flag football will remain an Olympic sport beyond the LA Games. Host countries can push for provisional inclusion of non-Olympic sports. Flag football would need Brisbane, Australia, to follow Los Angeles’ lead for a 2032 opportunity.

St-Juste, a 2021 third-round draft pick, is part of a new Canadian surge in the NFL. He played collegiately at the University of Michigan, where he met Julia, a track standout in the 400 meters, before transferring to Big Ten rival Minnesota. Roughly 25 Canadians are on rosters, including Miami Dolphins safety Jevon Holland, Houston Texans wide receiver John Metchie III and Carolina Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard. Others play in the Canadian Football League. The 2028 exposure will only help.

“(The Olympics) is going to grow this sport like crazy,” St-Juste said.

“I feel like she’s screaming through my soul!”

Darrell Hill is FIRED UP watching Anna Hall put on a show in the heptathlon. #ParisOlympics

📺 USA Network and Peacock pic.twitter.com/5hBSey8B0s

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2024

St-Juste should have a better chance to watch Hall in the final three competitions — the long jump, javelin and 800 meters, the latter of which Hall finished with the fastest time at the trials.

Washington will hold a walk-through on Friday before its preseason opener.

“It’s all good,” St-Juste said of rooting from far away. “She is so young that we’ll have a chance in another Olympic cycle.”

Perhaps. The Commanders cornerback might be busy chasing Olympic glory himself by then.

(Top photo of Anna Hall: Cameron Spencer / Getty Images)