5 Team Canada sports to watch this weekend: March 8-10
Get ready for an action-packed weekend Team Canada fans, as Canadian athletes compete on sand, on snow, in the ring, and on the water.
The Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 circuit gets going in Doha, Qatar, while the FIS Freestyle World Cup circuit has a stop in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Canadian boxers are fighting for places at Paris 2024 at the World Qualification Tournament in Busto Arsizio, Italy, while Canadian sailors are competing at the 49er and 49er FX World Championships in Lanzarote, Spain. Meanwhile, the World Triathlon Championship Series kicks off this weekend in Abu Dhabi.
Here’s what you don’t want to miss:
Beach Volleyball
The Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour is making its first stop of 2024 in Doha, Qatar for an Elite 16 event that started earlier this week and continues through Saturday.
Canadians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson entered the main draw ranked fourth on the FIVB World Ranking list. After winning their first two matches on Wednesday, they dropped their final preliminary round game 2-1 (10-21, 24-22, 15-13) to Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka, who are ranked 12th in the world.
Friday will feature the Round of 12 and the quarterfinals, which will lead to the semifinals and finals on Saturday.
Beach Pro Tour results have Olympic qualification implications, as the top 17 teams per gender on the FIVB Olympic Ranking list will qualify for Paris 2024. The ranking takes into account a team’s 12 best performances between January 1, 2023 and June 9, 2024.
READ: Brandie Wilkerson on big wins, learning from losses, and making a positive impact
Freestyle Skiing – Moguls and Aerials
The FIS Freestyle World Cup circuit is making a stop in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where moguls and aerials events are taking place this weekend. It is the last competition of the season for single moguls and aerials and the penultimate event for dual moguls.
It is the first World Cup in over a month for the mogulists. At their last stop in Deer Valley in early February, Mikaël Kingsbury scored his 87th career World Cup victory, a record by a male athlete in any FIS Olympic ski or snowboard discipline.
Kingsbury is currently first in the combined men’s moguls/dual moguls World Cup standings and first in the men’s dual moguls standings. He is second in the men’s moguls standings, but just 30 points behind Japan’s Ikuma Horishima, setting up an exciting finale. The men’s and women’s moguls events will take place on Friday, followed by the dual moguls on Saturday.
The aerials events will take place on Sunday. Marion Thénault is fourth in the women’s World Cup standings this season, despite having to miss a stage of the circuit in December after suffering a nasty fall in training. The 23-year-old got the season off to a flying start by winning gold in Ruka at the 2023-24 World Cup opener. She was also on the podium at the most recent event, finishing third in front of family and friends in Lac-Beauport last month.
In the men’s aerials, Alexandre Duchaine, who was the winner in Deer Valley in early February, will compete alongside Émile Nadeau and Lewis Irving, both of whom have World Cup podiums to their credit.
Boxing
The first boxing World Qualification Tournament is taking place March 3-11 in Busto Arsizio, Italy. There are 49 Olympic spots available for Paris 2024 across the 13 weight classes. In most weight classes, there are four Olympic berths to be allocated. The exceptions are women’s 57kg (2 spots) and women’s 60kg (3 spots).
Team Canada has several boxers still in contention. Scarlett Delgado (women’s 54kg) won her bout against Sweden’s Anna Svensson on Thursday and will advance to the round of 16 with a fight against Zeynab Rahimova of Azerbaijan on Friday. In the women’s 57kg class, Marie Al-Ahmadieh will face Olga Papatadou of Greece in the round of 32 on Thursday afternoon.
Sara Kali will take on Latvia’s Kitija Zarberga in the round of 32 in the women’s 66kg class on Friday, while Mckenzie Wright will battle Aira Villegas of the Phillipines in the round of 16 for the women’s 50kg class. Victor Tremblay will take on Portugal’s Pedro Manuel Gomez in the men’s 57kg round of 32, also on Friday. On Saturday, Alexis Barriere will fight Educador’s Gerlon Congo in the men’s +92kg round of 16.
Sailing
The 49er and 49er FX World Championships are taking place March 4-10 in Lanzarote, Spain where Canada is represented by five crews. This is the first of two regattas from which the results will be used to determine the Canadian 49er and 49er FX crews for Paris 2024.
In the men’s 49er, Santiago 2023 bronze medallists William Jones and Justin Barnes (who qualified the Olympic quota spot) are the top Canadians through the first eight races in Lanzarote. Also competing are Thomas and William Staples as well as Arie Moffat and Hunter Hoy.
In the women’s 49er FX, the leading Canadian crew through eight races is Georgia and Antonia Lewin-Lafrance. Also competing are Santiago 2023 silver medallists Alexandra ten Hove and Mariah Millen, who qualified the quota spot.
The qualifying series of races took place March 5-7, to be followed by the final series March 8-10, which concludes with the medal races.
Triathlon
The World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS), triathlon’s most prestigious competition circuit, kicks off this weekend with a leg in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The women’s and men’s sprint distance events — comprised of 750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run – kick off the season on Friday.
Four Canadians will be in action. Tyler Mislawchuk, ninth at the 2023 World Triathlon Sprint Championships in Hamburg, and Charles Paquet, seventh in the WTCS sprint event in Montreal last June, will take part in the men’s race, while Dominika Jamnicky and Emy Legault, fifth and sixth, respectively, at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games, will represent Canada in the women’s event.
Triathletes can accumulate points towards the World Triathlon Individual Olympic Qualification Ranking until May 27.
