5 sports to watch for Team Canada this weekend: July 28-30
As we enter the final weekend of July, Team Canada athletes will be competing in a number of sports at home and away. There are still a few days of competition left at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, where the curtain falls on Sunday. In the meantime, the Canadians could well add a few medals to their collection. This weekend also sees the conclusion of the World Fencing Championships in Milan.
There’s also action across Canada as the Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 beach volleyball tournament makes a stop in Montreal, a leg of the FIBA Women’s 3×3 Series takes place in Edmonton, and the Canadian Track and Field Championships get underway in Langley, British Columbia.
Here are the sports to watch this weekend to make sure you don’t miss out on any of Team Canada’s exploits.
Swimming
We are headed into the final weekend of the World Aquatics Championships, taking place in Fukuoka, Japan. Some of Canada’s top contenders will be in action in a weekend packed full of finals.
Summer McIntosh will compete in the prelims for the 400m individual medley on Saturday night, an event in which she is the world record holder. The final will take place on Sunday. McIntosh already has a bronze medal from the 200m freestyle and a gold medal from the 200m butterfly earlier in the meet.
Joshua Liendo will swim the 100m butterfly and 50m freestyle prelims on Thursday night. Those semifinals are on Friday morning with the finals on Saturday morning. Ilya Kharun will also swim the 100m fly. Kharun set a Canadian record in the 200m butterfly earlier in the meet, swimming 1:53.82 to finish fourth in that final.
The Team Canada backstrokers are also in action, Kylie Masse and Ingrid Wilm will swim the 200m prelims on Thursday, with the aim of advancing to the semis on Friday and final on Saturday.
This is also the timeline for Maggie Mac Neil competing in the 50m fly. MacNeil secured Team Canada’s first medal in the swimming events in Fukuoka with her silver medal performance in the 100m fly on Monday. Team Canada will also compete in several relay events this weekend, including the men’s 4x200m freestyle, the men’s and women’s 4x100m medleys, and the non-Olympic mixed 4x100m freestyle relay.
Athletics
The Canadian Track & Field Championships are happening July 27-30 in Langley, B.C. The event will draw Canada’s best athletes to compete for national titles, as well as spots on Team Canada at the World Athletics Championships taking place in Budapest, Hungary at the end of August.
The national championships will feature a special Olympic moment as members of the Canadian men’s 4x100m relay team from Tokyo 2020 will be honoured in a medal reallocation ceremony. Andre De Grasse, Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brendon Rodney were initially awarded bronze but received an official upgrade to silver in May 2022 when the British team (originally awarded silver) was disqualified for a doping violation.
In addition to participating in the ceremony, all members of the team are registered in the 100m during the championships, ensuring that the sprints will be exciting to watch.
Marco Arop, the 2022 world bronze medallist in the 800m is another athlete to look out for this weekend. He is fresh off a third place finish at the Monaco Diamond League event and has been consistently atop the world rankings in the event this season. Charles Philibert-Thiboutot is one to look out for in the 1500m. He set his first personal best in the distance in eight years this season, securing him the qualifying standard for both the world championships and Olympic Games.
Canada’s depth in the throwing events will be on display this weekend. Sarah Mitton (shot put) and Camryn Rogers (hammer throw) are both Tokyo 2020 Olympians, Canadian record holders, and 2022 Commonwealth Games champions. Both athletes are coming off stellar seasons with an eye on improving their positions from last year’s world championships (fourth for Mitton, second for Rogers).
Fencing
The FIE World Fencing Championships, which started in Milan on July 22, come to a close on Sunday. The final weekend is headlined by the team events.
In fencing team events, teams are placed in a direct elimination bracket according to their world ranking. Each team event takes place over two days. At the end of the first day, only the eight unbeaten teams continue on to the second day, at the end of which matches are held for the gold and bronze medals.
In team tournaments, each match consists of nine three-minute duels, or until the team reaches the next multiple of five touches: five touches after the first duel, 10 touches after the second duel, 15 touches after the third duel, and so on. If the ninth duel is completed before a team has scored 45 touches, the team with the most touches is declared the winner.
Here are the Canadian quartets in action in the team events:
Thursday:
Women’s epee: Leonora Mackinnon, Alexanne Verret, Marie-Frédérique Millette and Ruien Xiao
Men’s sabre: Shaul Gordon, Fares Arfa, Olivier Desrosiers and François Cauchon
Friday:
Women’s foil: Yunjia Zhang, Sabrina Fang, Eleanor Harvey and Jessica Guo
Men’s epee: Samuel Gallagher Pelletier, Dylan French, Nicholas Zhang and Fynn Fafard
Saturday :
Men’s foil: Bogdan Hamilton, Maximilien Van Haaster, Blake Broszus and Patrick Liu
Women’s sabre: Marissa Ponich, Tamar Gordon, Madison Thurgood and Pamela Brind’Amour
Team events for each weapon and gender are included in the Olympic program, but are contested by teams of three athletes instead of four. The countries that obtain the Olympic quotas for Paris 2024 will be determined on the basis of the official FIE senior team ranking, which will take into account the team results from World Cup, World Championship and Continental Championship competitions from April 3, 2023 to April 1, 2024.
Beach Volleyball
Montreal hosts a leg of the Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 this weekend, with men’s and women’s tournaments taking place at Parc Jean-Drapeau until Sunday.
Fans can watch the Canadian duos of Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson and Sarah Pavan & Molly McBain in action in the women’s tournament. Canadians Daniel Dearing and Samuel Schachter are in the men’s main draw.
Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson reached the quarterfinals in their most recent appearance on this circuit in Gstaad, Switzerland, on July 8. They had previously won bronze in Ostrava, Czech Republic in early June.
The group stage matches take place on Thursday and Friday. The knockout rounds begin on Saturday with the Round of 12 matches, followed by the quarterfinals. The semifinals and finals for the title and third place are scheduled for Sunday.
Games can be viewed via webcast on CBC sports.
3×3 Basketball
Canada’s 3×3 Women’s National Team is in action at home this weekend, competing at the FIBA Women’s 3×3 Series stop in Edmonton. Team Canada consists of Kacie Bosch, Paige Crozon, Katherine Plouffe and Michelle Plouffe. The squad hopes to repeat their win on home turf after winning last year’s Edmonton series stop.
Fans can catch the action live on the FIBA 3×3 YouTube channel.
