5 Team Canada sports to watch this weekend: April 12-14
Team Canada fans are in for an action-packed weekend, with athletes in action on the ice, the velodrome, the greens, the archery range, and in the pool.
The Canadian women’s hockey team are into the playoffs at the IIHF Women’s World Championship. Canadian track cyclists are hosting the world’s best at the UCI Nations Cup in Milton, Ontario while Canadian swimmers are tuning up for their Olympic Trials at the Canadian Swimming Open in Toronto. Canadian archers are taking aim at Olympic qualification at the Pan American Championships and four Canadians are in the field for the Masters Tournament at Augusta National.
Hockey
Team Canada’s quest for gold continues at the IIHF Women’s World Championship in Utica, New York. After a hard-fought overtime loss to Team USA on Monday, Team Canada finished second overall in Group A with a 3-0-0-1 record.
The Canadians will next take on Sweden in the quarterfinals on Thursday night. Last year in Brampton, Ontario, the match-up against Sweden and Canada was an overtime thriller, with Sarah Nurse scoring the game-winning goal for Canada.
The semifinals will take place on Saturday, followed by the medal games on Sunday.
Track Cycling
A total of 29 Canadian track cyclists will be taking part in the UCI Nations Cup in Milton, Ontario this weekend.
Kelsey Mitchell, Olympic gold medallist in the sprint at Tokyo 2020, and Lauriane Genest, Olympic bronze medallist in the keirin, will race on velodrome, as will rising star Dylan Bibic, a two-time world championship medallist who won two gold medals at the first Nations Cup of the year in Australia.
Maggie Coles-Lyster, Michael Foley, and Nick Wammes are among the other national team stalwarts looking to cap off the Olympic qualification period on a high note. This competition is the last that will count towards the UCI 2022-2024 Olympic rankings, which will be used to allocate all quota places for Paris 2024.
The finals of the women’s and men’s team pursuit events, the team sprint events, and the elimination races will take place on Friday.
Mitchell and Genest will be aiming for the podium in the women’s sprint on Saturday and the women’s keirin on Sunday. Saturday also features the men’s omnium, an event composed of four different races in which Bibic won gold in February.
Sunday will see Matthias Guillemette and Foley on the track for the men’s madison while Wammes competes in the men’s sprint and Coles-Lyster races in the women’s omnium. Tickets are still available if you’d like to cheer Team Canada on in person.
Swimming
Several of Canada’s top swimmers will be fine-tuning their preparations for the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Trials, which take place May 13-19, by competing in the first edition of the Canadian Swimming Open at the Pan American Sports Centre in Toronto.
Among the names to keep an eye on: current 400m IM world record holder and four-time world champion Summer McIntosh; reigning Olympic 100m butterfly champion Maggie Mac Neil; seven-time Olympic medallist Penny Oleksiak in her first competition since another knee surgery three months ago; and newly crowned 200m IM world champion Finlay Knox.
During the opening night of competition on Wednesday, McIntosh recorded the fastest time in the world this year in the women’s 200m freestyle. Racing will continue through Saturday, with heats in the morning and finals in the evening. You can stream the event on CBC Sports.
Archery
The Canadian men’s recurve team is taking aim at Olympic qualification at the Pan American Championships in Medellin, Colombia.
Crispin Duenas, Eric Peters, and Deevang Gupta have advanced to the men’s team final where they will face the host Colombians for the gold medal on Sunday. The winner will get the Olympic team spot for Paris 2024. The Canadians ranked second in the qualification round before winning their quarterfinal 6-2 over Chile and their semifinal 5-4 over Mexico.
While the Canadian women were eliminated from the team event in the quarterfinals, they did secure one individual Olympic quota spot earlier this week at the Pan American Olympic Qualifier that preceded the Pan Am Championships. Kristine Esebua defeated Virginie Chénier in that final, but who will fill the spot at Paris 2024 is still to be determined.
Golf
Four Canadians teed off at the Masters on Thursday: Adam Hadwin, Nick Taylor, Corey Conners, and 2003 Champion Mike Weir.
The quartet played an all-Canadian practice round earlier in the week, with Team Ontario (Weir and Conners) taking on Team BC (Taylor and Hadwin). The round was an opportunity for Taylor, Hadwin, and Conners to soak up some of 53-year-old Weir’s Augusta wisdom. Weir’s victory over two decades ago remains the only time a Canadian has won not only the famed green jacket, but any men’s golf major. This will be his 25th appearance at the Masters.
READ: Top moments in Canadian golf history
Conners will play in the tournament for the seventh time, with a track record that includes three top-10 finishes in the last four years. Hadwin will make his fourth Masters appearance, while Taylor, the reigning RBC Canadian Open Champion, will make his second appearance at Augusta National.
At the moment, Taylor and Hadwin are the Canadians in position to qualify for Paris 2024, but a strong result from Conners could boost him up the Official World Golf Ranking. Those rankings will close on June 17 to allocate Olympic spots.
