Weekend roundup: Figure skating returns, Vancouver hosts rugby sevens series
It was another memorable and successful weekend for Team Canada as competitions took place at home and abroad. In case you missed the action, here’s everything you need to know:
Skating to the podium ⛸
READ: Gilles and Poirier win gold, James and Radford debut with silver
A few Canadian figure skaters opened their international seasons with two medals at the Autumn Classic International in Pierrefonds, Quebec. On Saturday, ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto won gold after posting 208.97 points. Vanessa James and Eric Radford launched their new partnership by skating to a silver medal in the pairs event.
The Autumn Classic is one of the ISU Challenger Series events that take place ahead of the ISU Grand Prix series which starts in mid-October. This week, attention will turn to the Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany. That is the last chance Olympic qualifier for countries still needing to earn quota spots for Beijing 2022. Competing for Canada will be Roman Sadovsky, who is looking to lock up a second Olympic spot for Canada in the men’s event.
Paddling to world champ status 🥇
READ: Vincent paddles to gold in Copenhagen
Coming off of her bronze medal in the C-2 500m at Tokyo 2020, Katie Vincent went on to secure the C-1 200m gold in Denmark. She will now be the reigning world champion when the ICF World Canoe Sprint Championships return to Halifax in 2022.
Women’s rugby sevens battle for bronze 💪
After an exciting weekend at the Canada Sevens tournament in Vancouver, Team Canada came out with a bronze medal. The team battled to sweep Mexico 48-0 for the third-place finish.
The men’s team finished in sixth place after falling to the United States in the fifth-place playoff match.
Pitching Penny! ⚾️
Canada’s all-time most decorated Olympian Penny Oleksiak threw the ceremonial first pitch before Saturday’s Blue Jays game against the Minnesota Twins. Team Canada is proud to report she threw that pitch with zero hesitation while showing off her seven Olympic medals.
Swimming into the Canadian record books 🏊♀️
As the current season of International Swimming League competition continued in Naples, Italy, three Canadian records were broken.
Canadian swimmer Ingrid Wilm broke two Canadian short course records in the 50m and 100m backstroke. She swam 26.08 seconds in the 50m backstroke and 55.61s in the 100m backstroke. The LA Current team member won all three backstroke events on the program.
Javier Acevedo broke the Canadian short course record in the 50m backstroke by 23.49 seconds.
