Day 8: What Team Canada did at Paris 2024
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: it was a historic night in the swimming pool for Team Canada with three more medals won. That capped an exciting Day 8 at Paris 2024 that started with the women’s eight rowing their way to the podium.
Here’s a look back at all the Team Canada action!
Paris 2024 Competition Schedule
Swimming
The evening session started off with a bang as Josh Liendo and Ilya Kharun won silver and bronze, respectively, in the men’s 100m butterfly. Liendo finished in 49.99 seconds, just 0.09 back of gold medallist Kristof Milak of Hungary. Kharun, who had won bronze in the 200m butterfly a few days ago, came in 0.46 behind his teammate. This is Canada’s first double podium at the Olympic Summer Games since Montreal 1976, which also came in swimming and is Canada’s only other Olympic double podium in the sport.
About 40 minutes later, Summer McIntosh won her third gold medal and fourth medal of Paris 2024 as she set an Olympic record time of 2:06.56 in the women’s 200m individual medley. She becomes the first Canadian athlete, winter or summer, to win three gold medals in one Olympic Games. She ties teammate Penny Oleksiak for the most medals won by a Canadian athlete at one edition of the Olympic Summer Games.
The night was capped with a fifth-place finish in the mixed 4x100m medley relay by Kylie Masse, Finlay Knox, Liendo, and Maggie Mac Neil. That is Canada’s best Olympic result in the event, which debuted at Tokyo 2020.
Also in the evening session, Taylor Ruck finished 13th overall in the semifinals of the women’s 50m freestyle and will not advance to the final. She had been eighth-fastest in the morning heats.
The morning session also included the heats of the women’s and men’s 4x100m medley relays. Canada was second fastest in the women’s heats as the quartet of Ingrid Wilm, Sophie Angus, Mary-Sophie Harvey, and Penny Oleksiak finished in 3:56.10. Canada heads to the final of the men’s final ranked seventh after Blake Tierney, Knox, Kharun, and Javier Acevedo posted a time of 3:32.33.
Rowing
It was particularly fitting that Team Canada’s women’s eight delivered the first medal of Day 8 of Paris 2024.
The crew of Jessica Sevick, Caileigh Filmer, Maya Meschkuleit, Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski, Avalon Wasteneys, Sydney Payne, Kristina Walker, Abby Dent, Kristen Kit rowed to silver for their second straight Olympic medal in the event. Team Canada completed the 2000m course at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in 5:58.84 to finish behind a powerful Romanian boat.
READ: Canada’s rowing eight is battle tested, and back on the podium
Paris 2024 Olympic Games Information Hub
Tennis
Félix Auger-Aliassime came up just short of winning a second bronze medal at Paris 2024. A day after reaching the podium in mixed doubles with Gaby Dabrowski, he fell in three sets in the men’s singles bronze medal match to Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.
His fourth-place finish is still a great accomplishment as he posts Canada’s best Olympic result ever in either of the singles tennis tournaments.
Athletics
It was a tough day at Stade de France as Damian Warner no-heighted in the pole vault, the third-last event of the decathlon, ending his hopes of defending his Olympic gold medal. Devastated, he then withdrew from the competition. Warner had been sitting second place heading into the pole vault.
Audrey Leduc missed out on advancing to the final of the women’s 100m when she placed 12th overall in the semifinals in a time of 11.10 seconds.
Andre De Grasse is the lone Canadian man moving on from the first round of the men’s 100m. He finished third in his heat in 10.07 seconds. Aaron Brown had a false start in his heat and was disqualified while Duan Asemota was fifth in his heat in his Olympic debut.
Charles Philibert-Thiboutot is moving on to the semifinals of the men’s 1500m after finishing second in his repechage heat. He will not be joined by Kieran Lumb who was eliminated following his fifth-place finish in the other repechage heat.
Jazz Shukla was also eliminated in the repechage of the women’s 800m.
Football (Soccer)
Canada bowed out of the women’s soccer tournament in heartbreaking fashion, losing to Germany in the quarterfinals. After the match finished 0-0, Germany would win 4-2 on penalty kicks. Quinn and Janine Beckie converted their penalty kicks for Canada.
It’s Canada’s first loss at the Olympics since the semifinals of Rio 2016, also against Germany. And it’s the first time since Beijing 2008 that Canada won’t win a medal in women’s soccer, after winning bronze at London 2012, bronze at Rio 2016 and gold at Tokyo 2020.
Canoe/Kayak Slalom
In the first round of women’s kayak cross, Lois Betteridge finished fourth in her heat, forcing her into a repechage. Betteridge finished second in her repechage, qualifying her for the elimination round.
Alex Baldoni finished second in his heat, and will move on to the elimination round. Those elimination rounds begin on Sunday.
Beach Volleyball
Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson are into the Round of 16 in the women’s tournament after winning their “lucky loser” match 2-0 (21-15, 21-12) over Czechia’s Barbora Hermannova and Marie-Sara Stochlova. They had not received the direct bye into the Round of 16 after dropping their final preliminary round match 2-0 (21-14, 22-20) to Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasjia Samoilova, so ended up in the must-win scenario to keep their medal hopes alive.
Unfortunately, Sam Schachter and Daniel Dearing had to forfeit their lucky loser match to Chile’s Marco and Esteban Grimalt after playing just three games due to a back injury Dearing had sustained.
Artistic Gymnastics
Ellie Black and Shallon Olsen represented Team Canada in the women’s vault final. Black scored 13.933 to finish sixth, while Olsen scored 13.366 to finish eighth. The gold medal went to American Simone Biles. It was the third straight Games at which Olsen had qualified to the eight-woman vault final while Black was back in it for the first time since her Olympic debut at London 2012.
Road Cycling
Derek Gee and Michael Woods raced through the French countryside and the streets of Paris during the men’s road race. Woods and Gee crossed the line together, finishing the 273 kilometre course in a time of 6:26:57. They placed 41st and 44th, respectively.
3×3 Basketball
Team Canada defeated Azerbaijan 21-19 to finish fourth in pool play. This required the Canadians to play an additional play-in game against Australia. The Canadians emerged victorious from that game, by a final score of 21-10. Kacie Bosch was the team’s high scorer with nine points while Paige Crozon contributed five.
Golf
After three days of play at Le Golf National, Corey Conners is tied for 17th in the standings at 7-under-par after repeating his round two performance of a 2-under-par 69. Teammate Nick Taylor sits tied for 34th place at 2-under-par. He scored his best round yet, with a 3-under par 68.
Sailing
After the third day of racing in the ILCA 6 class, Sarah Douglas sits in 11th place. Day 8 saw her highest placing in the opening series, finishing eighth in race number six. Four races remain in the opening series before the top 10 sailors advance to the medal race.
Volleyball
The Canadian men’s volleyball team has been eliminated after dropping their final preliminary round match 3-2 to Serbia. Canada had won the first two sets (25-16, 25-22) before losing three straight (24-26, 19-25, 16-18). Canada went winless in the tournament.
Judo
Team Canada fell 4-0 to Uzbekistan in the mixed team elimination round of 16. The Canadian team included 57kg gold medallist Christa Deguchi, along with Arthur Margelidon, Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard, François Gauthier-Drapeau, Ana Laura Portuondo Isasi, and Shady Elnahas.
