5 Team Canada sports to watch this weekend: August 18-20
There is lots of Team Canada action to be excited about over the weekend. The World Athletics Championships kick off on Saturday. The Canadian team, which got its hands four medals at last year’s Worlds, is in good position to improve on that number.
The women’s and men’s rugby teams have the opportunity to qualify for Paris 2024 on home soil in Langford, B.C. The Canadian women’s 3×3 basketball team is playing in Quebec City, aiming to triumph at home in Canada for the second time this season in the FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series.
Having won an Elite 16 tournament of the Beach Pro Tour in front of fans in Montreal a couple weeks ago, Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson are aiming to repeat that performance in Hamburg this weekend. Meanwhile, Canadian archers have the opportunity to test the facilities that will be used for Olympic competitions next year in Paris.
Here are the sports to watch this weekend to make sure you don’t miss any of Team Canada’s performances.
Athletics
The World Athletics Championships begin this weekend in Budapest, Hungary. Team Canada is sending a strong team of 53 athletes, in the hopes of improving on last year’s medal haul, which included gold by the men’s 4x100m relay team, silver by Pierce LePage in the decathlon, silver by Camryn Rogers in the women’s hammer throw, and bronze by Marco Arop in the men’s 800m.
READ: A few Canadians to watch at the World Athletics Championships
Evan Dunfee will kick things off for Canada in the first event of the meet, the 20km race walk. Dunfee is an Olympic and world bronze medallist in the 50km event, but this will be his first 20km championship in seven years.
Saturday also features qualifying for men’s hammer throw, in which Ethan Katzberg will aim to advance to Sunday’s final. At only 21-years old, Katzberg is headed to Budapest in the number three spot in the world rankings after a breakthrough year. Also on Sunday is the men’s 10,000m, featuring Mohammed Ahmed. Ahmed is pulling a double at Worlds and will also compete in the 5000m, the event in which he is the reigning Olympic silver medallist from Tokyo 2020.
Brendon Rodney and Jerome Blake will also compete on Saturday in the heats of the men’s 100m, aiming to advance to the semifinals on Sunday which will be followed quickly by the final. Rodney and Blake are one half of last year’s gold medal winning relay team.
You can stream the action on CBC Sports.
Rugby
The Rugby Americas North 2023 Olympic Qualification Tournament takes place in Langford, B.C. this weekend. The top women’s team and the top men’s team from the tournament will each earn a spot in the Paris 2024 Olympic tournament.
The women’s tournament features Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Lucia. These five teams will compete in a round robin format, with the top two teams facing off in a gold medal and Olympic qualifying match on Sunday at 8:32 p.m. ET.
Three players who were at Tokyo 2020 will don Team Canada uniforms this weekend: Olivia Apps, Breanne Nicholas and Julia Greenshields. The complete list of players on the Canadian women’s team is available here.
New Zealand, Australia, the United States and France have already secured their participation in the 12-team Olympic tournament by finishing in the top four of the final World Rugby Sevens World Series rankings for the 2022-23 season. Canada ranked ninth overall.
The Canadian women’s team qualified for both the Tokyo 2020 and Rio 2016 Olympic tournaments. In rugby sevens’ Olympic debut, the Canadians won the bronze medal.
The men’s tournament features seven teams divided into two pools. In Pool B, Canada faces St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica, and Barbados. Pool A features the USA, Mexico and Bermuda. The final for the gold medal, and Olympic qualification, is scheduled for 7:38 p.m. ET on Sunday.
The Canadian men’s rugby sevens team qualified for Tokyo 2020 by winning the last edition of the Rugby Americas North Olympic Qualification Tournament, which was staged in the Cayman Islands in July 2019. Three of the players taking part in this weekend’s tournament were members of that team: Phil Berna, Cooper Coats and Josiah Morra. See the list of players making up the Canadian men’s team for this weekend’s tournament here.
New Zealand, Argentina, Fiji and France have already qualified for Paris 2024 by virtue of their ranking among the top four teams at the end of the last World Rugby Sevens Series season.
For both the men’s and women’s teams, teams that fail to qualify from their respective regional tournaments will have a last chance to earn their place in Paris at the Final Olympic Repechage Tournament, date and location to be confirmed.
All games taking place in Langford this weekend will be available on CBC sports.
Beach Volleyball
Hamburg, Germany will play host to an Elite 16 stop on the Beach Pro Tour this weekend. Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson are in the main draw for this tournament on Volleyball World’s most prestigious beach volleyball circuit, reserved for the top 16 teams.
The Canadians, who have been playing together only since the start of the season, scored their first victory on this circuit in front of an enthusiastic home crowd at the Montreal leg on July 30. Previously, they had won bronze in Ostrava, Czech Republic in early June, and reached the quarterfinals in Gstaad, Switzerland, on July 8.
The round robin, in which teams are divided into four groups of four, begins on Thursday and continues on Friday. The top team in each group advances directly to the quarterfinals, while the teams finishing second and third in their groups advance to the round of 12. On Sunday, the tournament continues with the semifinals. The finals for the women’s tournament are scheduled for Sunday at 12 p.m. ET, and for third place at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Games are streamable on CBC Sports.
3×3 Basketball
The Canadian women’s 3×3 basketball team is playing at home again with a FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series stop in Quebec City.
The team, which usually consists of Katherine Plouffe, Michelle Plouffe, Paige Crozon and Kacie Bosch (who will be replaced by Jamie Scott for the Quebec stop), is on a hot streak, topping the podium at their last two tournaments, which included a home event in Edmonton at the end of July, as well a stop in Prague in early August. The team also notched a gold in June in Poitiers, France.
READ: Canadian women’s 3×3 team on basketball, humility and the pathway to Paris 2024 Olympic Games
You can watch the tournament through CBC Sports.
Archery
The fourth stage of the Archery World Cup takes place in Paris until August 20. The competition takes place on the site that will host the Paris 2024 archery events, the Esplanade des Invalides opposite the historic Hôtel des Invalides, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. This World Cup, organized by World Archery, serves as a test event for the next Olympic Games.
READ: What is an Olympic test event?
Eric Peters, the silver medallist at the recent World Archery Championships, is taking part in the men’s recurve tournament, as are Crispin Duenas and Devaang Gupta. The three join forces in the men’s team tournament. Kristine Esebua is the only Canadian competing in the women’s recurve tournament.
Qualifying took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, with elimination rounds taking place through Friday. Finals will take place on Sunday.
