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Newsletter By Adam Beauchemin, Jackson Starr, Dan Plouffe & Kaitlyn LeBoutillier
Ottawa’s Vanessa Gilles scored the critical game-winning goal that kept Canada hopes of advancing in the Olympic women’s soccer tournament alive, and then delivered an unforgettable post-match interview that will surely swell support among disillusioned Canadian fans.
Canada entered the match facing near-impossible odds on making it past the group stage when it was hit by a six-point deduction as penalty for recording video of New Zealand’s practice with a drone prior to their opening match, which Canada ultimately won 2-1.
Facing Olympic-host and world #2 France without three coaches who were banned for a year, the #8-ranked Canadians went down 1-0 prior to halftime before equalizing in the 58th minute and then getting Gilles’s winner in the 12th minute of added time.
“I feel a lot of pride for the players that are here,” Gilles said an in her interview with CBC. “Less than 12 hours ago, we were in our hotel, sitting in a circle, crying our eyes out, punching walls, crying again, laughing about it, crying again, so we’ve been through a whirlwind of emotions.
“Even running out to the field, I’m talking with Simi (Awujo) and we’re both saying we just want to cry right now. Pride. I don’t think there’s much that can break this group up. These players, these supporters, the staff that are still with us who are keeping us together and are our therapists right now, they’re our parents when we don’t have our parents in camp.
“It’s just a lot of pride and honour to be Canadian, to be amongst these players and to have our families in the stands to keep us through this. It’s just a whole lot of pride.”
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Only time will tell whether it will become as historic, but Gilles’s interview was so full of raw emotion, passion and pride that it evoked memories of Phil Esposito’s interview that rallied the nation after Game 4 of the 1972 Summit Series.
“We haven’t slept in the last three days. We haven’t eaten. We’ve been crying,” Gilles highlighted. “I wouldn’t say they are ideal performing situations, but we’ve held each other through it and we’ve had absolutely nothing to lose.
“What’s given us energy is each other and our determination and our pride to prove people wrong, our pride to represent this country when all this sh** is coming out about our values, about our representation as Canadians. It’s not us. Like I’ve said time and time again, we’re not cheaters. We’re damn good players, we’re a damn good team, we’re a damn good group and we’ve proven that today.”
WATCH CBC VIDEO – GILLES INTERVIEW BEGINS AT 5:24:56 MARK:
Early in the game, Gilles anchored her team’s backfield playing spoiler to a few opportunities from the French attack.
France’s Marie-Antoinette Katoto opened up the scoring just before half-time, putting pressure on the Canadians who could not afford a loss or a tie.
Coming into the second-half and needing at least two goals to earn a shot at the quarter-finals, the Canadians played with a palpable urgency.
The team upped their aggression and in the 57th minute, captain Jessie Fleming broke through the French defence, kicking in a rebound goal off a shot from Ashley Lawrence.
With the score tied, Canada couldn’t take its foot off the gas. They continued to pressure the French team but at the ninetieth minute, the score remained 1-1.
In the dying minutes of the game, defender Gilles moved up the field to add to the Canadian attack — a move that would quickly pay off.
Canada rushed down the field and Jordyn Huitema sent a kick towards the net from above the box. Substitute goaltender Constance Picaud blocked Huitema’s shot, but spat out a rebound directly towards Gilles, nicknamed “The Magnet”, who slotted a perfect shot off the inside of the post to beat the French keeper.
Canada has now worked off its six-point penalty with the two wins and will likely advance with a win over Colombia in its final group match on Wednesday.
Marial Shayok helps South Sudan to first-ever win in Olympic basketball debut
Ottawa basketball player Marial Shayok helped South Sudan to a historic 90-79 win in their match against Puerto Rico today.
South Sudan has been a country for only 13 years, and the 32nd-ranked East African nation bested #16 Puerto Rico to earn their historic first win at the Olympics.
“For the Motherland,” Shayok wrote in an Instagram story following the win.
Shayok was a key factor in the game, starting at guard and playing a total of 23 minutes. The 29-year-old netted 15 points, going 5-for-10 from the field. Shayok also added 3 rebounds and 1 assist.
“It was a surreal feeling. Playing in front of our fans, playing on the world stage. It was just a beautiful feeling,” Shayok told FIBA Basketball.
South Sudan’s win against Puerto Rico marks only the second time an African team beat a team from the Americas in the Olympics.
Puerto Rico led the game 54-48 after two quarters, but South Sudan dominated the latter half of the game, outscoring their opponents 42-25.
The lengthy South Sudan Bright Stars won the battle on the backboards, out-rebounding Puerto Rico 55-37. South Sudan’s tenacity on the boards translated to a whopping 22-point gap in second-chance points-for, with South Sudan dominating 24-2 in that category.
Next up for Shayok and the South Sudan team is the tournament-favourite Americans, who handedly defeated Serbia 110-84 in their opening match.
South Sudan nearly eked out a victory against Team USA in an exhibition match last week — ultimately losing 101-100 — and will surely hope to repeat their strong performance against the star-studded stars and stripes.
Ottawa Olympians in action on July 29:
Preview: Water polo goalie Jessica Gaudreault ready for high point of rollercoaster ride to the Olympics
It has been a long and winding road to the Olympics for Barrhaven’s Jessica Gaudreault.
The 30-year-old Canadian water polo goalkeeper is entering her second Olympic Games, but first as a starter, after serving as an alternate for the Tokyo Games in 2021.
She’ll make her long-awaited debut against favoured Hungary in Team Canada’s opening match tomorrow evening in Paris.
Gaudreault had played a majority of Canada’s games in goal in the lead-up to Tokyo, which left her looking for answers after the surprising news that she wasn’t chosen for either of the two goalie spots on the Olympic roster.
“After Tokyo, I just had to really reevaluate,” Gaudreault reflected during an interview with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Jackson Starr prior to the Games, “and decide that I had to take my game to the next level to make sure that those types of decisions were never made again, and that I was playing all the games, because as a competitive athlete, honestly, that’s what you want.”
Earning a spot on the Canadian team was one thing, and qualifying for the Olympics was another. The second part of the equation wound up being just as much of a rollercoaster ride as the first.
With strong performances early at the 2023 Pan American Games and 2024 World Aquatics Championships, Canada gave itself a chance to qualify for Paris 2024 on four occasions, but lost each match – to USA in the Pan Am final, to Spain in the world quarterfinal, to Australia in the 5-8 classification semi-final and to Italy in the seventh-place game.
However, only a few hours later, it was announced that 14th-place South Africa had decided to forfeit its African Olympic qualification position and that Canada would receive a ticket to the Games as the highest-ranked non-qualified team.
Gaudreault says that while there had been some prior discussion about the possibility of South Africa dropping out, there was still concern in the lead up to that announcement.
“There had been some rumours during the tournament,” recalls the Ottawa Titans/Capital Wave product. “We were kind of in limbo. For some of us, it was maybe the last time we would be playing together. I’ve played with some of these girls for almost 10 years, so it was hard to think about that part, but we just kept our hopes up.
“Luckily, we only had to wait a few hours before we were told that South Africa pulled out, so that was good.”
The ups-and-downs continued when a fire in March forced the closure of the team’s training centre at Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The team had to find pool time elsewhere, including the Claude-Robillard facility farther north and outdoors at Parc Jean-Drapeau.
“We kind of joke around that we’re kind of like experts at adapting,” Gaudreault indicates. “The girls that I’ve played with for a really long time, we’ve adapted through coaching changes, through tactic changes, through all these things and now that we’re nearing the end potentially of playing with certain people, we just…know how to deal with all these challenges that get thrown at us, and we’re really good at adapting.”
At the last World Championships, Canada finished behind seven of the 10 teams participating in the Olympic tournament, making them an underdog going in to Paris. Gaudreault says that’s just another challenge the team is ready to take on.
“I feel like we’re progressing in the right direction,” she highlights. “I’m really looking forward to playing in front of the crowd and to having my family there. That’s really exciting, to represent them and our country. My goal is to play the best that I can, that I know I can for sure, and to support my team as much as I can in getting our best result.”
Also in action tomorrow will be Sam Zakutney, who is set to compete in the men’s artistic gymnastics team finals.
Zakutney and fellow Team Canada gymnasts Zachary Clay, Rene Cournoyer, Felix Dolci, and William Emard earned Canada a spot in the finals in Saturday’s qualification events when they finished the day with a total team score of 247.794, which was good for eighth place.
This is the first time since 2008 that Canada has sent a full men’s gymnastics team, and they will face seven other countries tomorrow: China, Japan, Great Britain, Ukraine, the United States, Italy and Switzerland, who occupied the top-7 spots in qualifying as Canada secured the last available finals berth.
Ottawa tennis star Gaby Dabrowski will hope that third time’s a charm when it comes to playing her first match of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The 32-year-old was set to make her Paris debut today, but her first match of the tournament was delayed for the second time in two days.
The three-time Olympian and third-ranked women’s tennis player will be partnering with Leylah Annie Fernandez to take on the French pair of Clara Burel and Varvara Gracheva.
While Dabrowski has grand slam and world titles to her name, Olympic success has evaded her thus far, but she’ll be returning to the familiar Roland-Garros clay courts where she became the first Canadian woman to win a grand slam back in 2017.
“The honour of a lifetime,” Dabrowski wrote on Instagram after Friday’s opening ceremonies.
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