By The Canadian Press

Fact File: U.S. Olympic team did not use Tate McRae song to ‘troll’ Canada

Feb 9, 2026 | 4:17 PM

A video that supposedly showed Team USA walking out to a Tate McRae song during the Milan Cortina Olympics opening ceremony went viral on Instagram over the weekend. The video was generated with the Sora AI platform, as a watermark that briefly appears on the video shows, and it includes inaccurate flags, flag-bearers and clothing. The account that posted the video has a history of generating AI fakes.

THE CLAIM

A video posted to Instagram Friday claimed to show Team USA “trolling” Team Canada at the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Olympics.

In the video, athletes walk through a stadium while the song “Just Keep Watching” by Canadian singer Tate McRae plays in the background.

“Walking in to a Tate McRae track. You gotta think they’re trolling their neighbours to the North,” an announcer says.

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The video ends with a screenshot of a CBC video about the backlash McRae received for appearing in an NBC Olympics advertisement that promoted Team USA, despite the singer being Canadian.

The video clip purporting to show the opening ceremony received more than nine million views and 56,000 likes on Instagram, and around 770,000 plays and 20,000 likes on TikTok.

THE FACTS

A frame-by-frame analysis shows the Sora watermark briefly appears on the left side of the video. The text-to-video app developed by OpenAI allows users to generate AI videos, and while they’re supposed to carry the watermark when created, it’s relatively easy to remove them.

Other signs the video is AI include the Union Jack flag in the background, which contains two red crosses instead of one, and the lack of stars on some American flags.

The flag-bearer seen in the video does not resemble either of the American flag-bearers who walked in the opening ceremony.

Nor do the striped outfits worn by the supposed athletes resemble what Team USA actually wore during the opening ceremony.

The account that posted the videos has a history of generating AI fakes with sports themes. In its Instagram bio, the page describes itself as posting “hot takes and not-so-deep fakes.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2026.

Marissa Birnie, The Canadian Press