Canadian Roundup: Gold medals rise as records fall
From the ice in Marseille to the pool in Windsor, Team Canada athletes made history once again as they hauled medals around the world.
The list is long so lets get to it.
Figure Skating
Read: Virtue and Moir win first Grand Prix Final
Read: Duhamel and Radford skate to bronze in pairs
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won their first-ever Grand Prix Final title in ice dance on Saturday. Their victory came after they broke their recently established short program world record on Friday and became the first pair to break the 80-point barrier scoring 80.50. Meghan Duhamel and Eric Radford won bronze in pairs with 205.99.
Alpine Skiing – Ski Cross
Read: Thompson golden, Brady lands silver in Val Thorens
Ski cross athletes had a big opening weekend with a World Cup double header in Val Thorens. Olympian champion Marielle Thompson led the charge with a gold medal on day one. Brady Leman followed up with a silver on Sunday to cap off the competition for Canada.
Freestyle Skiing – Moguls
Read: Kingsbury kicks off moguls season with gold
Mikael Kingsbury opened up the pre-Olympic season with his 34th World Cup victory in Ruka, Finland. His gold medal score of 84.26, put him ahead of Australia’s silver medallist Matt Graham by almost four points.
Luge
Read: Gough golden in shortened luge World Cup
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Bad weather conditions and missing sleds delayed the World Cup event in Whistler, but that didn’t stop Alex Gough from winning gold on Saturday night. The Canadian’s home ice victory came with a new track record of 38.796s.
Snowboard – Slopestyle
Read: A sweep headlines Canadians at Dew Tour
A Canadian sweep led the nation’s medal haul at Dew Tour. Mark McMorris won men’s slopestyle, Max Parrot secured second place and Sébastien Toutant finished third. Spencer O’Brien also earned a spot on the podium and left Colorado with bronze.
Freestyle Skiing – Slopestyle
Read: Canadian grabs six medals at Dew Tour
Alex Beaulieu-Marchand and Kaya Turski led the Canada’s skiers at Dew Tour with a pair of bronze medals. Not only did Beaulieu-Marchand land a bronze in slopestyle, he finished third in the non-Olympic event street style.
Freestyle Skiing – Halfpipe
Cassie Sharpe and Mike Riddle both earned a spot on the half pipe podium on the first stop on the Revolution Tour in Colorado. Sharpe picked up her silver medal on Saturday after scoring 92.75 points, Riddle also finished second with a total score of 90.50.
Speed Skating – Short Track
Read: Three medals for St-Gelais at World Cup in Shanghai
Marianne St-Gelais made three podium appearances at the short track World Cup in Shanghai. The first came on Saturday when the three-time Olympic medallist raced to bronze in the 500m, before adding another on Sunday in the 1000m. St-Gelais teamed up with Jamie MacDonald and Marie-Eve Drolet to win silver in the 3000m relay.
Speed Skating – Long Track
Read: World Cup 10,000m bronze for Bloemen in Heerenveen
Canada’s Ted-Jan Bloemen competes during the men’s 10,000 meters race of the Speedskating World Cup at the Thialf ice rink in Heerenveen, Netherlands, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Ted-Jan Bloemen skated to a 10,000m World Cup bronze on Sunday in Heerenveen. The world record holder finished behind Dutch skaters, Jorrit Bergsma and Erik-Jan Kooiman.
Swimming
The FINA Swimming World Championships in Windsor will go down as Canada’s best-ever performance at a short-course championship. Although the eight medals won matches Canada’s showing in 1999, the previous record included zero gold medals. This year Canadians took home two women’s relay titles in 4x50m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle. The nation’s relay teams also brought home hardware in the women’s 4x100m medley (silver) and mixed 4×50m freestyle (bronze).
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Individual medals went to Olympic champion Penny Oleksiak (100m freestyle bronze), Taylor Ruck (200m freestyle bronze), Kylie Masse (100m backstroke silver) and Kelsey Wog (200m breaststroke silver). Canadians broke a total of 17 national records in front of home fans in Windsor.
