Canada fails to reach podium for first full day at Olympics

Canada’s march to the podium at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics came to an end on Monday.

For the first time in this Olympics, Canada did not have an athlete capture a medal for an entire day. This ends a streak of nine consecutive days, which tied a Canadian record, in which at least one athlete from the country was able to bring home a medal.

Hammer throw Olympic gold medalist Ethan Katzberg was the last Canadian to win a medal at these games yesterday and the country’s medal count stays static at 17 heading into Tuesday’s action.

That’s good enough for 11th overall in the Olympic medal table.

With that being said, it was still an exciting day for Canada at the Olympics. Here are some of the highlights from day 10 in Paris:

3×3 basketball

Canada’s one chance for an Olympic medal on Monday came in the form of the women’s 3×3 basketball team.

The team won four games during pool play and was able to get into the semi-finals by winning a play-in game against Australia. Canada was unable to get past Germany, dropping a razor-thin 16-15 loss to relegate them to the bronze medal match against the United States.

A medal wasn’t meant to be for Canada as they dropped the bronze medal game to the U.S. by a score of 16-13, narrowly missing out on the podium.

Though it wasn’t the finish that Canada would have preferred, a fourth-place finish in their first Olympic appearance in the sport is still admirable.

Beach volleyball

On the sand, Canada came into the day with a spot in the women’s beach volleyball Olympic quarterfinals on the line.

Their opponents were no slouches. The Canadian team of Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes went up against a formidable American duo of Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss.

The Americans were favoured to win the match, but Canada stuck with things and was able to pull off the major upset in straight sets.  It was close, but Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes took the opening set 21-19 and the second set 21-18 for the win.

The Canadian duo will now move on to the quarterfinals on Wednesday, where they will meet Spain.

Athletics

There wasn’t a ton to cheer about for Canada on the track today, but sprinter Andre De Grasse did have some positive results in the opening round of the men’s 200-metre dash.

The 29-year-old De Grasse is the defending Olympic champion in the run and he was able to clinch a spot in the semi-finals by finishing second in his heat with a time of 20.30 seconds. The only runner faster in his heat was the newly minted men’s 100-metre champion, Noah Lyles.

The semi-finals will take place on Wednesday.

Two other Canadians will have a chance to join him as both Aaron Brown and Brendon Rodney will run the event’s repechage round tomorrow.

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