Sport Shorts: Dispatches from Nine Sports
Cross-Country Skiing: Alex Harvey (St-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Que.) has quickly emerged as one of the world’s top cross-country skiers and came close on Sunday to adding to his electrifying gold medal victory in the team sprint last week. Harvey missed a medal by two seconds, finishing 5th in the 50 km freestyle race in Oslo. Though he did break the Canadian record of 7th, set by Al Pilcher in 1989. “This is the toughest course on the World Cup with all of the climbs here,” Harvey said. “It is almost too much climbing so I’m really happy I was able to hang in there.”
Speed Skating: Christine Nesbitt (London, Ont.) once again led all Canadian speed skaters at the final World Cup of the season over the weekend in Heerenveen, NED. In winning bronze in the 1,500 metres, Nesbitt locked her status as World Cup champion in that distance. Nesbitt went on to finish 4th in the final 1,000-metre race and just missed a World Cup title in that event as well. She finished 2nd overall, a status helped reach by six gold medals this season. Watch for a full article on Nesbitt this week on Olympic.ca.
Ski Cross: Coming off back-to-back wins, Olympian Chris Del Bosco (Calgary) captured a bronze medal in a ski cross World Cup in Switzerland last Thursday. On the women’s side, Kelsey Serwa (Kelowna, B.C.) and Danielle Poleschuk (Calgary) finished 10th and 11th, respectively.
Biathlon: Sochi 2014 Olympic hopeful Scott Perras led the Canadian team at the World Biathlon Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia on the weekend. Saturday, the Regina native finished 34th in the 10 km race. Sunday, he moved up three spots to 31st in the 12.5 km pursuit.
Alpine Skiing: Whistler’s Britt Janyk cracked the top-10 on Saturday at a World Cup downhill event in Tarvision, Italy. She finished a season-best 9th. Janyk came out strong on Sunday in rough conditions to finish 24th in super-G, thus qualifying for both events at the World Cup Final in Lenzerheide, SUI in two weeks. Both Mike Janyk (Whistler) and Julien Cousineau (Lachute, Que.) qualified for the World Cup final in slalom.
Tennis: Milos Raonic (Thornhill, Ont.) used his powerful serve to win his 2nd-straight singles match on Sunday, defeating Daniel Garza to lead Canada over Mexico in Davis Cup action. The victory vaulted Canada into a second-round pairing with Ecuador in July.
Figure Skating: Figure skater Andrei Rogozine (Richmond Hill, Ont.) glided into the history books on Saturday. Rogozine captured gold at the World Junior Championships – the first Canadian to win a men’s world junior title in the sport since Dennis Coi in 1978.
Swimming: Canada had an excellent showing at a U.S Grand Prix swimming event in Indianapolis. Individual gold medallists were Ashley McGregor (Pointe-Claire, Que.) in 200 m breaststroke, Erica Morningstar (Calgary) in 200 m individual medley. The strong Canadian team won four relay gold medals, including one in the women’s 4×100-metre freestyle race that also saw two other Canadian teams win silver and bronze. Rounding out the medals were Audrey Lacroix (Montreal), silver in 200 m butterfly, Matt Hawes (Ottawa), silver in 200 m backstroke, Victoria Poon (Montreal), bronze in the 100 m freestyle, Andrew Ford (Guelph, Ont.), bronze in 400 m individual medley and Morningstar, bronze in 100 m breaststroke.
Squash : Nick Sachvie (St. Catharines, Ont.) and Laura Gemmell (Toronto) both finished second in the men’s and women’s competitions respectively at the U.S College Squash Championships on Sunday. It was the second straight that Canadians made the men’s and women’s U.S. college finals.
