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Newsletter By Jackson Starr, Adam Beauchemin, Dan Plouffe & Kaitlyn LeBoutillier
One heroic game winner at the Olympics was not enough for Vanessa Gilles. The 28-year-old defender from Ottawa once again played the role of hero for her country today.
In a must-win game against Colombia, with the score stuck at 0-0, Gilles hammered home a header from a Jessie Fleming free kick to Canada the lead in the 61st minute.
The goal, Gilles’s second of the tournament, was all Canada needed to secure the three points and advance to the quarter-final round at the Olympics, as they held Colombia off from there.
Canada had won its two earlier matches but was penalized six points for drone spying in advance of its contest against New Zealand. On match day, Canada’s appeal of the penalty was dismissed.
This meant that the team had to win all three of its group-stage matches in order to have a chance at moving on. And with a large amount of help coming from Gilles, who scored the game-winner against host France on Sunday, Canada have now won all three matches in the group stage and are advancing to the quarterfinals.
“Right now, I feel an immense amount of pride,” Gilles told CBC after the match. “Pride for the players here, for the staff that are grinding it out, for the supporters, friends and family that are here. The friends and family came to our hotel and made sure that we felt the support and the love… just pride to be Canadian, pride to be a part of this group, and just really excited to be in the quarter finals.”
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Canada will now play a very strong German side on Saturday. If the team is able to pick up a victory in that match, it could set up a semifinals match with the United States, in what would be a rematch of the Tokyo semi.
“The world might be against us, but Canada is sticking together,” added Gilles, who was substituted out in the 85th minute after receiving treatment, possibly for a calf cramp. “Hopefully we will go all the way.”
Kate Miller pleased, heartbroken by 4th-place diving finish
It was a nail-biting finish in the women’s synchronized 10-metre platform finals on Wednesday morning, as Ottawa nearly saw its first medal of the Olympics courtesy 19-year-old Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club product Kate Miller.
Competing alongside Canadian teammate Caeli McKay, the pair found themselves in third place heading into their final dive, with an advantage of just over four points over the British duo of Andrea Spendolini Sirieix and Lois Toulson.
Sirieix and Toulson absolutely nailed their final dive to score 77.76, demanding perfection from the Canadians to maintain their podium placing. Miller and McKay had a very strong dive themselves, but the 68.16 points they were awarded left them 5.16 points back of a medal spot with a total of 299.22.
Miller and McKay gave a teary interview with CBC after the event, as they felt the full sting of finishing one place off the podium.
“I’m really excited that I was able to compete here,” underlined Miller. “It’s an accomplishment to be here, so I’m really thankful for that. It was really good experience for me.”
For McKay, it was a second consecutive fourth-place finish in Olympic women’s synchro diving. She competed with Meaghan Benfeito at the Tokyo Games, and only joined forces with Miller last year.
“[Kate] and I looked at each other before the last dive, and we just said, ‘Go for it,’” recounted the 25-year-old from Calgary. “I think we both knew that we were in a good position to possibly medal, but we just wanted to go out there and give it our all.
“Today, what we put down was our all and that’s all we could have asked for. Unfortunately it wasn’t on the podium, but I feel like we’ve already won being here.
“I’m going to get emotional now. I’m really proud of us as a team. And fourth place again is hard. But it doesn’t take away anything from our careers and any of the work that we’ve put in. Fourth place is the hardest place to get at the Olympics especially.
“But I think that it’ll make her stronger for the rest of her career. I’m really proud of her. She’s an Olympian now and I’m just really happy that we were able to be here together.
“If it’s a hard day, we get to go through it together and if it’s a good day, we get to go through it together.”
Gaby Dabrowski out in women’s doubles, into medal round for mixed doubles
Ottawa tennis player Gabriela Dabrowski had a down-and-up day in her double doubles appearances Wednesday.
Her first match of the day was alongside Leylah-Annie Fernandez, looking to advance to the third round of women’s doubles. That feat would not be accomplished however, against the powerful duo of Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva. The neutral duo defeated Dabrowski and Fernandez in straight sets to eliminate the Canadians from the tournament.
Both sides traded games early on in the match before a brief weather delay stopped play momentarily. Upon return, Fernandez and Dabrowski fell behind before needing to break the neutral pair in order to make the score 5-4. Just after however, Shnaider and Andreeva broke the Canadians right back to win the set.
It was all downhill from there for the Canadians, who were swept away 6-0 in the final set to put an end to their tournament.
In her second match of the day, Dabrowski and Felix Auger-Aliassime joined forces once again in mixed doubles against the American pairing of Taylor Fritz and Coco Gauff. It was a back-and-forth match, with each side trading momentum throughout.
At one of the biggest junctures of the match, when the first set was tied 4-4 and Canada serving, both sides traded advantage point five times before the Canadians were able to outduel the Americans and hold serve. The Canadians would eventually go down in the set 6-5 but battled back to pick up the set victory in a convincing tiebreak result (2).
The second set was controlled by Fritz and Gauff, who won three consecutive games after the set was tied 3-3 to force a deciding first-to-10 tiebreak for all the marbles.
In what was an incredibly intense tiebreaker, both sides showed emotion as the American and Canadian fans rose to their feet with every point.
Much like the entire match, the tiebreaker went back and forth. It was squared up at 8-8 before Dabrowski and Auger-Aliassime were able to win two consecutive points to secure the win in what was an incredibly entertaining contest.
With the loss earlier and the win alongside Auger-Aliassime, Dabrowski will return to the clay courts at least one more time looking to keep her tournament alive.
“I’m really proud of the way that I was able to turn around my energy,” Dabrowski said via the Canadian Olympic Committee. “Earlier, I was extremely down, so I was pretty pleased with, personally, my ability to just bounce back from a tough loss in the women’s, and no better than doing it beside Felix.
“I thought he brought amazing positivity and a lot of really great experience and calm to the match and that helped a lot. I was really pleased to finish on a high note.”
Dabrowski and Auger-Aliassime will take on the Czech pair of Tomas Machac and Katerina Siniakova on Thursday in the semi-finals.
Jess Gaudreault helps Canada to big first win of water polo tournament
In her team’s second match of the Olympics, goalkeeper Jessica Gaudreault and the Canadian women’s water polo team were able to secure a 12-7 victory over China and improve to 1-1 in the tournament. It was a crucial victory in Canada’s quest to advance to the quarter-final round.
Unlike the first match of the tournament against Hungary, Canada got out to a strong start. Catapulted by some large saves from Gaudreault, Canada opened up a 4-0 lead through the first quarter of play.
China however, made some adjustments in the second quarter, putting three past Gaudreault and closing the gap to 5-3 halfway through the match.
In the second half, the offence picked up for Canada. A strong third quarter saw Canada go up 9-4 off the back of multiple strong offensive possessions, and even though China stuck with Canada in the fourth quarter, the Canadians were able to hold the lead and secure the key victory.
Canada currently sits at 1-1, which is good for third in the standings of Group A. It will have another tough and crucial matchup against 2-0 Australia, who sit just ahead of Canada in the standings, on Friday.
Marial Shayok & South Sudan basketball earn respectable scoreline against powerhouse USA
Despite a valiant push-back in the second half, the United States was simply too strong for Ottawa’s Marial Shayok and the South Sudan men’s basketball team on Wednesday. The U.S. came away with a comfortable 103-86 win. The Americans did a better job shutting down Shayok, who put up 25 points in a pre-tournament game against USA, limiting him to 12 points this time.
After trailing 55-36 at halftime, South Sudan battled back in the third quarter to close the gap going into the fourth. While it was a back and forth fourth quarter, the USA was able to manage its lead and come away with the convincing result.
Crucially, South Sudan was able to minimize its point differential loss with the strong second half against the Americans. With point differential being a potential tiebreaker in order to get to the knockout stage, keeping games as close as they can is of utmost importance to Shayok and South Sudan. It now sits at 1-1 in the tournament, looking to pick up its second win against a challenging Serbian side on Saturday.
Ottawa Olympians in action on August 1:
Preview: Olympic rookies Julie Brousseau & Regan Rathwell set for first swim splash
Two young Ottawa swimmers will be joining Canada’s pool party on Thursday when they make their Olympic debuts.
After two long years of battling injuries, including four surgeries in the span of 14 months, 20-year-old Greater Ottawa Kingfish product Regan Rathwell fought through, and shocked everyone including herself, to qualify for Paris 2024.
During the Canadian Olympic team trials, Rathwell set a personal best time of 2:09.38 in the women’s 200-metre backstroke to unexpectedly qualify for her first Olympics as well as her first senior national team.
“The initial reaction was shock. I was like ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I just did that,” recounted Rathwell in conversation with Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin. “And then, the second reaction was relief.”
The injuries, which included a broken foot, torn labrum and a concussion which she suffered just weeks before the Olympic trials in Toronto, put her prospects of qualification in doubt.
“I’m going to be completely honest with you, I had absolutely no expectations,” the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteer highlighted.
Despite the short amount of time to gear up for the trials, Rathwell finished second in her race and below the Olympic qualification standard time.
“I had to work that much harder for it in the end — much harder than I thought I would have to,” Rathwell indicates. “It just makes it that much more special.”
You can read our full pre-games feature on Rathwell here.
Another young swimmer in action on Thursday will be Julie Brousseau. The 18-year-old, who just finished her senior year at Nepean High School, gets ready to take to the pool on the biggest stage in Paris.
Brousseau was selected to race the women’s 4×200-metre freestyle relay in Paris because of her performance at the team trials in Toronto. The Nepean-Kanata Barracudas athlete placed third in the women’s 200 m free with a personal-best time of 1:57.60.
“It was crazy after making the Olympics going back to high school and having to go to math class,” Brousseau told Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin before the Games. “It was really cool to finish high school as an Olympian.”
It was a very strong year for Brousseau in the lead up to qualifying. In September 2023, she took home a team-best seven medals at the World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships, and then followed that up with two gold medals at the Pan Am Games later in the fall.
You can read our full pre-Games feature on Brousseau here.
Also in action Thursday will be Dabrowski, who can guarantee herself either a gold or silver medal with a victory in her mixed doubles semi-final against the Czech pair of Tomas Machac and Katerina Siniakova. A loss would drop her into the bronze medal match.
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