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A pair of world championships and an historic Tournament of Hearts highlight an exciting weekend for Canadian Olympic athletes on the international stage. Here are the key events:
Speed skating world championships
Canada came storming out of the gates yesterday at the World Speed Skating Single Distances Championships in Calgary, winning three medals on Day 1. The men’s and women’s sprint teams both repeated as world champions while Isabelle Weidemann took silver in the individual women’s 3,000 metres. The Canadian men broke the world record in their victory, which came in a photo finish with the Netherlands.
Canada took a bit of a step back today as the reigning Olympic and world champion trio of Weidemann, Ivanie Blondin and Valérie Maltais lost its world title in the women’s team pursuit. The Canadians took silver, close to three seconds behind the Netherlands.
Canada then grabbed its fifth medal of the championships when the men’s pursuit team took bronze. Italy won gold and Norway got the silver.
At last year’s single-distances worlds in the Netherlands, Canada won three gold and seven total medals to place second in the standings.
Still to come was the men’s 500m event at 4:20 p.m. ET. Canada’s Laurent Dubreuil won silver last year and was the world champion in 2021. He was part of yesterday’s gold-medal victory in the men’s team sprint.
CBC Sports is streaming Saturday’s races starting at 2:30 p.m. ET and Sunday’s starting at 2 p.m. ET. Here’s the full schedule of events.
World Aquatics Championships
The Canadian women’s water polo team thought it had missed its last chance to qualify for the Paris Olympics when it lost to Italy in today’s showdown in Doha for the final spot. But Canada was awarded an Olympic entry after South Africa, the lone African qualifier, decided it would rather not make the trip to Paris after losing four of its five games and getting outscored by 50 goals at the worlds.
Canadian swimmer Sydney Pickrem won her second medal of the championships today, earning bronze in the women’s 200m breaststroke. She took silver in the 200m individual medley earlier this week.
With most of the world’s top swimmers electing to skip the worlds because the Olympics are only five months away, Canadians have collected six medals in the pool. Finlay Knox won the only gold yesterday in the men’s 200m medley.
Swimming competition continues through the weekend. CBC Sports is streaming the finals on Saturday and Sunday starting at 11 a.m. ET.
Scotties Tournament of Hearts
Curling’s championship season kicks off tonight in Calgary with the opening draw of the Canadian women’s tournament. Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones is seeking a record-breaking seventh title in what will be her final appearance at the Scotties. The 49-year-old skip announced this week that she’s retiring from women’s curling at the end of the season but will continue playing mixed doubles with her husband, Brent Laing. Read more about Jones’ Scotties swan song in this story by CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux.
Kerri Einarson’s Team Canada is going for its fifth consecutive Tournament of Hearts championship, which would break the titles-streak record it shares with Colleen Jones’ rink from the early 2000s (the current Nova Scotia coach also owns part of the all-time titles record with Jennifer Jones). Another top contender is three-time Scotties champ Rachel Homan’s Ontario team, which has won a pair of Grand Slam events this season.
If you missed yesterday’s newsletter, here’s our roadmap of curling’s upcoming major Canadian and world championships.
Other things to watch:
* A new women’s pro hockey attendance record is expected to be set tonight when Toronto hosts Montreal in a PWHL regular-season game at Scotiabank Arena. The 18,800-seat home of the NHL’s Maple Leafs is sold out, so the game should easily break the record of 13,316 set in January when Minnesota’s PWHL team hosted Montreal.
* The short track speed skating World Cup season concludes this weekend in Poland, where several Canadians are in the hunt for hardware. Steven Dubois and William Dandjinou rank second and third in the men’s overall standings while Canada sits second in the women’s relay and third in the men’s relay. Dandjinou, though, will miss the finale due to an injury.
* Did Calgary just become the centre of the Olympic sports universe? In addition to the Scotties and the speed skating world championships, the Stampede City is hosting the final ski halfpipe World Cup events of the season as part of the annual Snow Rodeo at Canada Olympic Park. Last night, hometown athletes Amy Fraser and Brendan Mackay each grabbed a silver while Olympic champ Eileen Gu of China and American Alex Ferreira won the women’s and men’s events. The season finales go Saturday night.
How to watch:
In addition to the speed skating and aquatics world championships, CBC Sports is streaming the aforementioned World Cup short track and halfpipe events along with alpine skiing, bobsleigh and luge races. Plus, the Ontario university swimming championships and a PWHL game between New York and Boston on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET. The Scotties and tonight’s PWHL game in Toronto are on TSN.
Saturday’s CBC Sports Presents show on the CBC TV network features the aquatics and speed skating worlds, halfpipe and alpine skiing. Watch it from 1-6 p.m. ET. See the full streaming and broadcast schedule here.
Source Agencies
