Team Canada wins historic bronze medal at Artistic Gymnastics World Championships
Canada has won its first ever team medal at the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, capturing bronze in the women’s team final on Tuesday in Liverpool, England.
With the podium performance comes a women’s team ticket to Paris 2024, which will qualify a squad of five gymnasts for Canada. Who will fill those spots will be determined much closer to the Olympic Games.
Canada finished with a score of 160.563 points, placing them on the podium behind the United States (166.564) and Great Britain (163.363). It was the sixth straight world title for the Americans in the women’s team event while the Brits thrilled the home crowd with their silver medal.
Leading the way for Canada in Liverpool was Ellie Black, the decorated veteran who has been to three Olympic Games and was the all-around silver medallist at the 2017 World Championships. She was joined by four world championship rookies: Laurie Denommee, Sydney Turner, Denelle Pedrick, and Emma Spence. The team was without two-time Olympian Shallon Olsen, who sadly had to withdraw just before the worlds began following the sudden and unexpected death of her mother.
Canada had been the eighth and final qualifier for the team final, but over the course of the day, the team improved its score from the qualification round by six-tenths of a point.
Heading into the fourth and final rotation, Canada sat in fourth place behind Japan, two-tenths of a point out of bronze medal position. While Canada would finish up on beam, the Japanese would conclude on uneven bars.
In the final, each team puts forward three gymnasts to compete on each apparatus and all three scores are counted towards the overall results.
Japan’s final competitor on the uneven bars, Kokoro Fukasawa, struggled throughout her routine and ended up coming off the apparatus partway through. That major interruption cost her team dearly, dropping Japan all the way to seventh overall.
It was all the opening Canada needed to capitalize. Black, one of the best in the world on beam, closed things out for Canada with an absolutely solid routine. After her dismount, she gave a huge fist pump to her teammates as she locked up the historic medal. Canada’s team score of 39.632 on beam was the second highest by any team on that apparatus.
Black still has several more events ahead of her. The women’s individual all-around final will take place on Thursday, followed by the apparatus finals for vault on Saturday and beam on Sunday. You can watch the action on cbcsports.ca.
