Day 6 Recap: 14 medals, thrills and heartbreaks
No morning medals to contest, it was in the afternoon and evening that another 14 medals were in Team Canada’s grasp.
Canada now sits at 97 medals: 38 gold, 36 silver, and 23 bronze. That is good enough to retain the top spot for six straight days by virtue of most gold, and a return to the summit in total medals as well.
Day 6 – 2015 Pan Am Games Medal Table.
Finding the podium today were: Swimming (6 medals), Badminton (4 medals), Track Cycling (2 medals), Tennis (1 medal), and Wrestling (1 medal). A total of 19 sports were contested on Day 6.
Swimming
Sydney Pickrem swam to silver in the women’s 400m individual medley.
Swimmers had another big day at the pool, winning 6 more medals on Thursday, and had a gold taken away to heartbreaking disqualification. Swimming their way to the podium were: Luke Reilly (men’s 400m individual medley silver), Sydney Pickrem (women’s 400m individual medley silver), Noemi Thomas (women’s 100m butterfly silver), Katerine Savard (women’s 100m butterfly bronze), Santo Condorelli (men’s 100m butterfly bronze), and the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team (Alyson Ackman, Brittany MacLean, Emily Overholt, Katerine Savard) who swam to bronze.
More swimming: Tuesday | Wednesday
Badminton
Michelle Li (right) won gold over teammate Rachel Honderich, who took silver, in women’s singles. (Photo: Mike Ridewood)
Canada’s badminton players won a total of four medals on Thursday. Michelle Li won women’s singles gold over compatriot and women’s doubles partner Rachel Honderich, who took silver. Andrew D’Souza lost his gold medal match to finish with silver in men’s singles, as did the mixed doubles team of Toby Ng and Alexandra Bruce.
Cycling – Track
The men’s sprint team of Hugo Barrette, Evan Carey and Joseph Veloce rode their way to gold. (Photo: Jason Ransom)
The track cycling team began their first day of competition with the only two cycling gold medals of the night. They took top spot in the men’s team sprint (Hugo Barrette, Evan Carey, Joseph Veloce) and then followed that with the same result in the women’s team sprint (Kate O’Brien, Monique Sullivan).
O’Brien described what it felt like to have the home crowd support: “I couldn’t believe the support of the home back stretch, I just heard screaming, so to have everyone out, family and friends and just Canadians in general being able to support us at home is just such a special experience.”
Tennis
Gabriela Dabrowski (left) and Carol Zhao listen to O’Canada after winning women’s doubles gold. (Photo: David Jackson)
Gabriela Dabrowski and Carol Zhao won gold Thursday in women’s doubles. The duo took the first set 6-1, but then dropped the second set 6-4. The Canadians won the super tiebreak 10-5 to secure the gold medal.
“You don’t get many chances to play in games like this in your hometown,” said Zhao. “Winning it on home court was really incredible.”
Wrestling – Freestyle
Genevieve Morrison wrestled to gold in the women’s -48kg weight class. (Photo: Michael Hall)
Geneviève Morrison fought her way to gold in the women’s 48kg Thursday. She wrestled the medal away from Peruvain fighter Thalia Mallqui.
Morrison described the win: “To be honest, I was trying to keep the aggression on but she was really good at holding good body position so I was just trying to wrestle a disciplined match. I would have liked to create more offense. It was way too close for comfort for me, but sometimes you just have to get it done. It was awesome to have a crowd like this; they helped me hold it off in those last few seconds.”
Click for a lookahead to Day 7 for what’s on tap.
For full Team Canada results from Day 6, click here.
