5 Team Canada sports to watch this weekend: May 3-5
Team Canada is turning up the heat this weekend! There’s Paris 2024 qualification for 3×3 basketball and all of the relays in track and field.
Canadian artistic swimmers will test the waters at their Olympic venue, while Canada’s top beach volleyball team takes to the sand in Brazil. Meanwhile, Alison Jackson is hoping to make more magic happen at La Vuelta Femenina.
Here’s what you don’t want to miss:
Athletics
Canada will be looking to qualify relay teams for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the World Athletics Relays meet in Nassau, Bahamas this weekend. Over the course of the weekend, Canada will field teams in all Olympic relay events in a bid to secure one of the 14 spots to be allocated in each of five events — the women’s and men’s 4x100m relays, as well as the women’s, men’s, and mixed 4x400m relays.
The meet kicks off on Saturday with the qualifying heats for each relay. The top two teams in each heat will qualify for Paris 2024 and the final on Sunday. All the other teams will take part in another qualifying round on Sunday, where the top two teams in each heat will qualify for Paris 2024. In the finals, medals and cash prizes will be at stake. The results of the finals will also determine the allocation of lanes at the Olympic Games.
Canada will be keeping a particularly close eye on the men’s 4x100m relay, in which the quartet of Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and Andre De Grasse, who won silver at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games before going on to win gold at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, will be back together on the starting line.
READ: Andre De Grasse has his eyes set on Paris 2024
In the women’s 4x400m relay, Canada put in a fine performance at the 2023 World Athletics Championships, finishing fourth. Canada also finished just off the podium in the event at Tokyo 2020.
Among the Canadians athletes who could start in the men’s 4x400m and mixed 4x400m relays are 800m world champion Marco Arop and Christopher Morales Williams, who memorably ran an indoor world record time in the 400m a few months back that couldn’t be ratified.
The last two Olympic spots in each relay will be allocated on June 30 on the basis of the World Athletics’ performance list during the qualification window.
3×3 Basketball
Coming off a win at the first FIBA Women’s Series stop of the 2024 season, Team Canada will look to carry that momentum into the FIBA 3×3 Universality Olympic Qualifying Tournament taking place this weekend in Utsunomiya, Japan.
READ: Team Canada’s women’s 3×3 team makes push for Paris while prioritizing passion
Michelle Plouffe, Katherine Plouffe, Paige Crozon and Kacie Bosch will be supported by Cassandra Brown as they look to secure Canada’s spot in the women’s 3×3 tournament at Paris 2024. Only one Olympic spot will be awarded per gender at this tournament. The remaining three team spots per gender will be up for grabs May 16-19 in Debrecen, Hungary. China, France, Azerbaijan and the USA are already qualified for the women’s tournament at Paris 2024.
Team Canada has a reputation of rising to the occasion, winning back-to-back FIBA Women’s 3×3 Series titles in 2022 and 2023. If the team qualifies, they will become Canada’s first Olympic 3×3 team.
Beach Volleyball
Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson will take on the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 tournament in Brasilia, Brazil this weekend. The Canadians will play in Pool D, starting off with a match against Brazil on Thursday afternoon.
The duo finished fifth at the last Elite16 event in Tepic, Mexico, in April. They have never missed the quarterfinals in any tournament since teaming up ahead of last season.
The event in Tepic was Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson’s 12th tournament together. That was the requisite number to have their world ranking count towards Olympic qualification. The FIVB Olympic Ranking List won’t officially close until June 10, but the Canadian duo is currently fifth, provisionally positioning them to take one of the 17 women’s beach volleyball tickets to Paris 2024.
Artistic Swimming
Team Canada has the opportunity to test the waters at the brand new Aquatics Centre where the Paris 2024 Olympic events will be held this summer. The second leg of the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup is there this weekend.
On Friday, Jacqueline Simoneau will take part in the solo technical routine before teaming up with Audrey Lamothe for the duet technical routine. The two swimmers will then be among the eight athletes in action for the team technical routine. Saturday will see the duet free and team free routines, followed on Sunday by the solo free and team acrobatic routines.
This past February, Simoneau, who has been back with the national team since last September after taking a two-year break to devote herself to school, was crowned world champion in the solo free after taking silver in the solo technical event at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha. Canada finished sixth in the technical routine, seventh in the free routine and fourth in the acrobatic routine.
A duet event and a team event are contested at the Olympic Games. While in the World Cups, medals are awarded for each routine, at the Olympic Games, the overall ranking is determined by combining the results of the different routines: the free and technical for the duet event, and the free, technical and acrobatic for the team event.
Road Cycling
Team Canada fans will be keeping an eye on the multi-stage cycling race, La Vuelta Femenina, this week. The race in Spain has already been successful for Canadian Alison Jackson, who took the win in stage two while representing the EF Education – Cannondale team.
“I came in with a real fire to win this. Even starting under the rain, I took the mentality that it could be a very good day and I just needed to be a bit more careful than usual. I was lucky to always be in the right place at the right time, with teammates guiding me from the beginning to the end,” Jackson said post-stage.
Also in the field is Canadian Olivia Baril, who races with Movistar Team. She finished third in the third stage on Tuesday.
Jackson currently ranks fourth in the points classification. The eight-stage race concludes Sunday in Madrid.
