Paralympic newsletter: 2 Canadian stars win gold, and what to watch Friday
CBC
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The most decorated Canadian athletes in the Paris Games added to their huge medal collections today as swimmer Aurélie Rivard and wheelchair track racer Brent Lakatos each captured gold for their 13th career Paralympic medal.
Rivard won the women's S10 400m freestyle title for the third consecutive time, giving her six Paralympic golds and a medal of each colour in Paris. She'll go for her fourth podium of the Games in Friday's 100m backstroke, which is her final event.
Not long after Rivard's victory, Lakatos kept pace by winning the men's T53 800m for his first Paralympic gold since he took the 100m title in 2016. This was the final race in Paris for Lakatos, who earned a silver in the 400m last week and missed the podium in his other two events. The 44-year-old wouldn't say whether he'll return for his seventh Paralympics in 2028 in Los Angeles.
Also today, Tess Routliffe took bronze in the women's SB7 100m breaststroke for her second medal of the Games. Canada's Para swimmers have won 10 medals in Paris — two more than their total from the 2021 Games in Tokyo.
With eight days of competition in the books and three still to come, Canada has won 20 medals — six gold, six silver and eight bronze. That's just one short of the total from Tokyo. Here's the full medal table.
Other key Canadian results:
* The Canadian men's wheelchair basketball team hung tough in the first half before losing its semifinal 80-43 to the reigning Paralympic and world champion United States. Canada will play Germany for the bronze on Saturday while the U.S. faces Great Britain for the gold.
* Canada's women's sitting volleyball team also lost its semifinal, falling in straight sets to China. The Canadians can still win their country's first Paralympic medal in this sport when they face Brazil for the bronze on Saturday.
* 2021 Paralympic flag-bearer Priscilla Gagné made it to the bronze bout in the women's 57kg J1 judo tournament but lost 11-1 to her Argentine opponent. Gagné took silver in the 52kg division in Tokyo before moving up to the heavier weight class.
* The second-ranked mixed pairs boccia team of Alison Levine and Iulian Ciobanu lost their bronze game 6-1 to Thailand. Levine and Ciobanu also missed the podium in their individual events.
Here's a roundup of today's Canadian performances.
WATCH | Lakatos wins 2nd Paralympic title:
Here are some top names to watch, in chronological order:
Canada's Kevin Drury battled his way to a gold medal that left him in tears at a World Cup ski cross event on Friday in Val Thorens, France.
Soccer fans have accused FIFA of a "monumental betrayal" after latest prices for World Cup tickets began to circulate on Thursday.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is “disappointed” that the main arena slated to host ice hockey at February’s Olympics isn’t yet completed with less than two months to go before the Games are scheduled to be played.
A two-year suspension from competitive swimming has forced Penny Oleksiak to answer questions about drug use, train by herself in public pools and defend her legacy as Canada’s most decorated female Olympian.
Hockey, one of the premier events at the Winter Olympics and one that is welcoming NHL players back for the first time in more than a decade, will take place on ice shorter than NHL-regulation size.
Summer McIntosh capped swimming’s U.S. Open with the event record in the women’s 200-metre butterfly on Saturday in Austin, Texas.
Some bronze medals are worth their weight in gold. Valerie Grenier's third-place finish in women's giant slalom at the Mont-Tremblant World Cup certainly fits that category.
The men’s World Cup draw in Washington D.C. was going well for Canada until Pot 4.
The draw for the 2026 World Cup takes place Friday at 12 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Center in Washington, for the purpose of dividing the 48-team field into 12 groups of four. Once the tournament starts, 32 teams will advance from those preliminary groups to the single-elimination knockout rounds.
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., buzzed with activity and speculation on Thursday in advance of Friday’s all-important draw for the 2026 men’s World Cup.
By the time the management group for the Canadian men’s national hockey team emerges from marathon meetings on Tuesday, as much as 80 per cent of the roster going to Italy next February should be written in pen.
Canada’s ski mountaineering athletes have their Olympic dreams on the line this weekend at a World Cup event in Solitude, Utah.
Goalie Carter Hart, one of five 2018 Canada world junior hockey players acquitted of sexual assault in July, will make his first NHL appearance in nearly two years when he starts in goal Tuesday night for the Vegas Golden Knights, who host Chicago.