Weekend Roundup: Olympic spots claimed by Team Canada in skateboarding and beach volleyball
Eight more Team Canada athletes earned their tickets to Paris 2024 with their performances this past weekend.
That group includes four skateboarders who clinched their Olympic spots following the conclusion of the Olympic Qualifier Series in Budapest, Hungary and two beach volleyball duos who were victorious at the last chance continental qualifier in Mexico.
Elsewhere, Canada’s Paris 2024-bound men’s volleyball team had themselves a perfect week in Volleyball Nations League action.
Read on for all the news you may have missed:
Skateboarding: Four Canadians qualify for Paris 2024
Cordano Russell, Matt Berger, Ryan Decenzo, and Fay De Fazio Ebert all punched their tickets to Paris 2024 following their performances at the second Olympic Qualifier Series competition in Budapest, Hungary. Russell, Berger, and Decenzo will represent Canada in men’s street while De Fazio Ebert qualified in women’s park.
READ: Four skateboarders qualify for Paris 2024
The results from the two Olympic Qualifier Series competitions in Shanghai and Budapest were combined with the Olympic World Skateboarding Ranking to create a final ranking from which 20 quota spots in each skateboarding event were allocated.
De Fazio Ebert was ranked 23rd overall, but earned a quota spot because there is a maximum of three athletes per country per event and Japan, Brazil, and the United States all had four athletes place ahead of De Fazio Ebert.
The three Canadian men all finished in the top-20 of the men’s street ranking, with Russell at number 16, Berger at number 18, and Decenzo at number 19.
Beach Volleyball: Canada qualifies two teams for Paris at last chance tournament
It was a good weekend for Canadian beach volleyball duos at the NORCECA Olympic Beach Volleyball Qualification tournament in Tlaxcala, Mexico.
READ: Canadians win last chance Olympic qualifiers in men’s and women’s beach volleyball
Heather Bansley and Sophie Bukovec rolled through the competition on the women’s side, while Sam Schachter and Daniel Dearing did the same on the men’s side to earn spots in their respective tournaments at Paris 2024.
Both teams went into the last chance qualifier ranked 24th in the world. They both went 6-0, never dropping a set. They also both beat a Mexican team to clinch their spot.
Bansley and Bukovec will join Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson — who qualified via their world ranking — in the women’s Olympic tournament. Bansley played with Wilkerson at Tokyo 2020 but then retired before returning and teaming up with Bukovec less than a year ago. That was Bansley’s second Olympic appearance following her debut at Rio 2016 with Sarah Pavan. Paris will be the first Olympic Games for Bukovec.
Schachter will make his return to the Olympic Games eight years after his last appearance. He competed with Josh Binstock at Rio 2016. Dearing will make his Olympic debut. They will be the only Canadian men’s beach volleyball team at Paris 2024.
Archery: Peters posts top-five at World Cup
Eric Peters reached the quarterfinals of the men’s individual recurve event, finishing fifth overall at Archery World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya, Türkiye. Facing two-time Olympic team champion Kim Woojin of South Korea in the quarterfinals, Peters went up 4-0 before Kim came back with a perfect round of 30 to take the match 6-4.
Peters is now ranked a career-high fifth in the world. The fifth-place finish in Antalya was his best World Cup result of the year and matches his career-best result on the circuit that he achieved in April 2023.
Volleyball: Canada on fire heading into VNL quarterfinals
With their trip to Paris 2024 already secured, Team Canada’s men’s volleyball squad had an incredible week to close out the preliminary round of Volleyball Nations League.
The Canadians were perfect in VNL Week 3 action, reeling off four straight wins to clinch a berth in the quarterfinals. They entered the week with a 4-4 record that had them in seventh place. They moved up to fifth place in the VNL standings with their overall 8-4 record in the preliminary round. They also moved up three spots to ninth in the FIVB World Rankings.
They took down Japan in five sets, swept Germany and Brazil in straight sets, and finally took down Netherlands in a five-set thriller. Stepher Maar continues to lead the attack for Canada, averaging 15.75 attack points per game during the winning streak.
Canada will face World No. 2 Japan in the VNL quarterfinals in Lodz, Poland on Thursday.
