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Newsletter By Adam Beauchemin, Jackson Starr, Kaitlyn LeBoutillier & Dan Plouffe
Ottawa’s Eric Peters made his Olympic debut today, competing in the men’s individual archery event, though before he shot his first arrow, he had something even bigger on his mind.
“I lost my dad a couple years ago, and he was the one who was around to bring me into the sport and was there for me for everything growing up,” Peters explained in an interview with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Adam Beauchemin. “I was thinking about him going into the day a little bit, wishing he could be here and he could see it all.”
Peters first picked up a bow when he was 11 years old and he’s been shooting competitively since age 13. His love for the fantasy genre was his gateway into the sport.
“I always was — and I still am — that nerdy kid who loved fantasy books and video games and films,” Peters recounted in a pre-Games interview. “I begged and pleaded to get into archery because that’s what all my favourite characters were doing.”
Eventually, Peters’ parents gave in to his relentless requests and signed him up for the sport. He plied his craft over many years indoors at the RA Centre, and outdoors at South Nation Archery near Winchester or in Gatineau close to the Branchaud-Brière complex.
The 27-year-old has flown up the world rankings in the past year, all the way up to #5 entering the Games.
Today, Peters competed in the individual ranking round to determine match-ups in the upcoming head-to-head elimination rounds. He scored 659 points in the placement round to earn himself a ranking of 36th in the field of 64 athletes.
Peters said he was feeling good as the event started and he felt that he was executing well on his shots throughout the day. But many of his arrows weren’t falling how he’d hoped.
“It’s a binary — it’s either it’s in or it’s out, and all of them were out for me,” he highlighted. “So unfortunately, not the greatest score for me today, but nothing I can’t recover from.”
Peters’ performance today also factored into his ranking for the mixed team event in which Peters’ individual score was combined with that of his Canadian partner Virginie Chénier to determine qualification for the knockout round.
The duo finished the day ranked in 20th place, which left them short of reaching the top-16 positions required to qualify for the elimination bracket. Their combined score of 1,308 left them only nine points shy of the top-16.
“We didn’t make mixed team unfortunately, but that was always going to be a tough event,” Peters indicated. “Outside of the top four teams, it’s a really tight race. So, a couple points here or there is the difference.”
Peters will be entering the individual elimination round where he’s set to face the 19th ranked Ilfat Abdullin of Kazakhstan first. Peters bested Abdullin once on French soil with a 6-2 win in Stage Four of the Paris 2023 Hyundai Archery World Cup.
“I’m going to go out there and I’m going to shoot the best I can,” he signalled. “The matches on the stage, that’s where I’m best. So, I’m going to do my best and just take advantage of that situation as best I can and see what we can do.”
Peters said so far, the Olympics have felt similar to many other competitions he’s participated in, only a larger scale.
“It’s basically what I expected it to be, which is not a bad thing at all,” he noted. “I’m enjoying my time.”
While Peters will be filling his next few days with plenty of shooting, he plans to enjoy some brief down time before his next event.
“I’m going to go enjoy the opening ceremonies tomorrow — it’s the first time archery really ever gets to do that. And then I’m going to be right back to training — I’m going to have to be ready for those matches.”
Look for Peters in the individual men’s archery elimination round on Tuesday at 1:03 p.m. ET.
Gilles and Team Canada eke out a victory over New Zealand
Vanessa Gilles helped the Canadian women’s soccer team rally for a win against New Zealand after a tumultuous start to the squad’s Olympic tournament.
The reigning Olympic champions had to face the Kiwis while also dealing with the fallout of a recent incident in which a Canadian staff member was caught using drones to spy on New Zealand practices.
Canada’s head coach Bev Priestmen removed herself from the game against New Zealand in light of the scandal, and two staff members — assistant coach Jasmine Mander and analyst Joseph Lombardi — were released from the team.
Yesterday, Gilles told the Canadian Press: “Obviously it’s not ideal, especially with such a big tournament on the horizon. But at the end of the day we’re all professionals. We’re all going to make the most out of the situation we’re put in.”
Things only seemed to be getting worse for the Canadian footballers after New Zealand opened up the scoring early in Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium in Saint-Etienne, France with a goal from Mackenzie Barrie off a corner kick.
Despite the tough start to the tournament, the Canadians rallied.
They responded first with a goal by Cloe Lacasse in added time at the end of the first half to tie the game. The game was decided in the 79th minute when substitute Evelyne Viens potted a one-touch goal inside the post off a stretch pass from team captain Jessie Fleming.
Gilles played the full game at centre-back and saw little action in her own end as the Canadians spent plenty of time taking the attack to their opposition. Canada finished the game with 61% possession and out-shot the New Zealanders 22 to 7.
The lack of attack from the New Zealanders didn’t prevent Gilles from getting involved in the game.
The Tokyo Olympic gold medallist was seen rallying her teammates immediately after the early New Zealand goal.
In the first half, Gilles also made two strong stretch passes to Gabrielle Carle that both led to corner-kicks for the Canadians. Throughout the game, the Olympique Lyonnais star could also often be found attacking the New Zealand box on corner kicks and finished the game with a total of five shots.
Gilles and the rest of Team Canada will continue their tour through Group A opponents this Sunday, as they take on the host French team.
Preview: Gaby Dabrowski returns to site of first major triumph
Tomorrow, there are no competitions scheduled to make way for the official Opening Ceremonies, which start at 2 p.m. ET.
Peters, whose next competition won’t be for another few days, is looking forward to attending the festivities, however many other athletes who have action the next day will likely have to skip them, including Ottawa tennis player Gabriela Dabrowski.
But the 32-year-old doubles star has lived plenty of fine French experiences previously in her career, and she’ll get things started in the women’s doubles competition by facing a pair from host France, Clara Burel and Varvara Gracheva.
When Dabrowski sets foot on the famed Roland-Garros clay courts, she’ll be returning to the site of her first grand slam victory, in search of the Olympic success that has so far eluded her in two previous appearances.
In 2017, Dabrowski became the first Canadian woman to win a major when she teamed up with Rohan Bopanna to capture the French Open mixed doubles title.
“I think it shows that if you work hard over the course of a few years, you can achieve your goals,” Dabrowski reflected at the time. “It’s very, very special.”
Having struggled to make a go in her early days as a professional tennis player, Dabrowski’s career has only blossomed since then. She’s been ranked inside the world’s top-10 women’s doubles players since 2018 and currently sits third.
Paris will be Dabrowski’s third appearance for Canada at the Olympics, coming eight years after the first in Rio and seven years since she made history at Roland-Garros.
Dabrowski has won one match across her two Olympic appearances, her first with Eugenie Bouchard to finish ninth at Rio 2016. She lost in the first round of both the mixed doubles with Felix Auger-Alliasime and in women’s doubles with Sharon Fichman at Tokyo.
This time Dabrowski will team up with Leylah Annie Fernandez, who reached the U.S. Open singles final in 2021 at age 19. The duo was awarded the fifth seed in the competition based on their international rankings.
Though it will be their Olympic debut as a pair, Fernandez and Dabrowski have competed together in the past, most notably at last year’s Billie Jean King Cup when Canada claimed its first-ever women’s world team championship title.
“It’s a really great moment for us,” Dabrowski said in an on-court interview following Canada’s triumph. “I think playing for a country like Canada, we’re all very proud to do so. We come from a really great nation, we have a lot of great backgrounds and ethnicities. And we’re really grateful to have the chance to play on this stage in front of Billie Jean and in front of everyone who’s come.”
You can read our full pre-Games feature on Dabrowski by Jackson Starr here.
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