THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young – FIBA Basketball – Wrestling Canada
Several Team Canada athletes will continue their goal of qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics in the coming days, with some also aiming for world titles.
Basketball fans already missing all the excitement of Canada’s men’s team winning the bronze medal at the FIBA World Cup last week will have more action-packed games to watch this weekend. End as the Canadian women’s 3×3 basketball team aims for its second straight FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series Finals title after taking top honors at the circuit’s final tournament last year.
Four Canadian athletes will compete in the Diamond League finals and will look to add medals to their tally, while wrestling athletes compete against the best in the world at the Senior World Championships.
In tennis, the group phase of the Davis Cup finals will take place until Sunday and the Canadians have started defending their title with flying colors, while in volleyball the Canadian women’s team is starting the Olympic qualifying tournament.
Read on to find out how these athletes can progress on their path to Paris 2024 and what to look out for this weekend.
basketball
The FIBA Women’s 3×3 Series finals will take place on Saturday and Sunday in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Team Canada enters the tournament in first place after a successful season in which the Canadians notably won the titles of the tournaments held on Canadian soil this summer in Edmonton, Montreal and Quebec. The team of Michelle Plouffe, Katherine Plouffe, Paige Crozon and Kacie Bosch are also the reigning Tour champions after winning the Tour finals in Constanta, Romania last year.
The Canadian team that will represent the country this weekend has the highest win rate of any team on tour at 87%, a statistic carried by the Plouffe sisters, both of whom are among the top three most valuable players.
The team continues its quest to secure an Olympic qualification quota for Paris 2024. Canada is currently in fifth place in the FIBA 3×3 Women’s Standings. The best black countries will qualify for the Olympic tournament from November 1st. Once these quotas are awarded, an Olympic qualifying tournament will take place in 2024.
READ: Canada’s 3×3 team talks basketball, humility and the road to the 2024 Paris Olympics
Battle
Canadian wrestlers will compete against the best in the world at the 2023 UWW Senior World Championships September 16-24 in Belgrade, Serbia. This tournament offers Canadian athletes the first opportunity to secure qualifying spots for Paris 2024.
There are five Olympic qualification quotas at stake for each weight class at the World Championships. These quotas are granted to the gold, silver and two bronze medalists as well as the winner of the fight between the two losers of the bronze duel.
Canada is sending a team of 19 athletes, 12 of whom will compete in the tournaments in the Olympic weight classes. Consult The full team list can be found here.
Justina Di Stasio is one of the athletes to watch in the women’s 76kg category. With the exception of competing in the Olympics, she has already ticked all the boxes on her wish list, having won a world title in 2018, a Pan American Games title in 2019 and a Commonwealth Games title in 2022.
Di Stasio’s teammate and training partner Ana Godinez Gonzalez is also an athlete to watch in the women’s 62kg category. Godinez Gonzalez was the 2021 U23 World Champion and has since won a silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, a bronze medal at the 2022 U23 World Championships and gold at the 2022 U23 World Championships. 2023 Pan American Championships Godinez Gonzalez’s sister, Karla, is the favorite in the women’s 55 kg category, a category not included in the Olympic program.
READ: Justina Di Stasio and Ana Godinez-Gonzalez explain how wrestling is accessible to everyone and allows them to grow beyond themselves
Among the men to watch are Lachlan McNeil in the 65kg category and Nishan Randhawa in the 97kg category. McNeil won a silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Randhawa won a bronze medal at the Pan American Championships earlier this year and became the 2022 Commonwealth Games champion.
athletics
Following their success at the World Championships, some of Canada’s best athletes are extending their seasons to compete in the Prefontaine Classic, the finale of the 2023 Diamond League. The competition will take place Saturday and Sunday in Eugene, Oregon.
Shot putter Sarah Mitton, a silver medalist at the World Championships and in the final stages of the Diamond League, will be hoping for another podium. She will compete in the women’s shot put on Saturday.
Marco Arop will also be looking to continue his success after being crowned at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest and shortly afterwards winning a silver medal at the Diamond League meet in Xiamen. He will compete in the men’s 800m race on Sunday.
READ: By the numbers: Team Canada’s historic performance at the 2023 World Athletics Championships
Two Canadian sprinters will compete in the men’s 200m on Sunday: Aaron Brown and Andre De Grasse. Both had their best performances of the season in this event in their final race in Brussels, where De Grasse won the bronze medal, followed by Brown in fourth place.
tennis
The group phase of the Davis Cup finals, the largest international team competition in men’s tennis, runs until Sunday. As the 2022 Davis Cup winner, Canada automatically qualified for the final. Canada is represented this week by Vasek Pospisil, Denis Shapovalov, Alexis Galarneau, Gabriel Diallo and Kelsey Stevenson and plays in Group A based in Bologna, Italy.
In Wednesday’s game against the Italian hosts, the Canadians won the game convincingly. Galarneau, currently ranked 200th in the world, defeated Lorenzo Sonego, ranked 38th in the world, 7:6 (8) and 6:4. The 24-year-old Canadian is celebrating his first individual victory in the Davis Cup.
Diallo, ranked No. 158 in the world in the second singles match, defeated Lorenzo Musetti, ranked No. 18 in the world, in straight sets 7-5 and 6-4. To conclude the match, Galarneau teamed with Pospisil for the doubles match, which the Canadians won 6(4)-7, 6-4 and 7-6(3) against the Italian duo of Matteo Arnaldi and Simone Bolelli.
Canada faced Sweden on Thursday. Pospisil continued his winning streak and won in three sets 7:6 (5), 5:7 and 6:2 against Leo Borg. Diallo followed with a straight-sets win 6-4, 6-3 against Elias Ymer.
Canada will complete the group stage against Chile on Saturday. The 16 teams in the final have been divided into four groups of four and the top two teams in each group will qualify for the quarter-finals of the elimination phase, which will take place in November.
volleyball
Canada will try to qualify for the Olympic women’s volleyball tournament for the first time in 30 years. The three Olympic qualifying tournaments begin this weekend and run until September 24 in three different countries: China, Japan and Poland.
Canada is playing in Group A in Ningbo, China. Over the course of the nine-day tournament, the Canadians will face the Netherlands (September 16th), the Dominican Republic (September 17th), Serbia (September 18th), China (September 20th), Ukraine (September 22nd) and Mexico ( September 22). 23), Czech Republic (September 24). The best two from each of the three tournaments will qualify for Paris 2024.
Canada is currently ranked 11th in the world. In their group, Serbia (3rd), China (6th), the Netherlands (9th) and the Dominican Republic (10th) are currently ahead of them in the table. However, this year the Canadiens have done their best to shed the reputation of being an underrated team. At the Volleyball Nations League in June, Canada beat reigning world champions Serbia, fourth-ranked Brazil and the Netherlands.
Canada’s last participation in the Olympic women’s volleyball tournament was in Atlanta in 1996.
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