Olympic newsletter: Canada adds 3* medals, plus Mitton goes for gold | CBC Sports

This is an excerpt from CBC Sports’ daily newsletter, The Buzzer. Subscribe here to get the latest on the Paris Olympics in your inbox every day.

Officially, two Canadian women reached the podium today in Paris. Flag-bearer Maude Charron took silver in weightlifting while Skylar Park grabbed a bronze in taekwondo. But beach volleyballers Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson guaranteed themselves at least a silver by advancing to Friday’s final.

Not counting their pending hardware, Canada’s medal count now stands at 21 — six gold, five silver, 10 bronze — with three days of competition left. The Canadian records for gold (seven) and total medals (24) at a non-boycotted Summer Games are within reach.

Along with the beach volleyball final, Friday brings a great chance for another Canadian gold in a field event, plus a prime podium opportunity in canoe. Here’s what to watch on Day 14, plus the scoop on a big upset in today’s men’s 200m final and a near-shocker in the men’s basketball semis.

Sarah Mitton goes for gold while Andre De Grasse tries to salvage his Olympics

Andre De Grasse doesn’t owe us anything. He’s the most prolific track and field athlete in Canadian history, winning six medals in six events over the past two Summer Olympics (including a 200m gold in 2021) along with his five career medals at the world championships (including a 4x100m title in 2022).

But, at 29 years old here in Paris, it seems that he’s lost a step. De Grasse didn’t qualify for the men’s 100m or 200m finals, and his sluggish time of 20.41 seconds in Wednesday’s 200m semis was especially deflating. It feels too soon to write him off — and a hamstring injury could be slowing him right now — but De Grasse’s days as an individual medal contender may be behind him.

He might also be hard-pressed to reach the podium in his last race of the Games, the 4x100m final on Friday at 1:47 p.m. ET. This morning, De Grasse and teammates Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brendon Rodney scraped through qualifying with a third-place finish in their heat. Running anchor, De Grasse held off 100m silver medallist Kishane Thompson for the last entry from the group, eliminating Jamaica.

The United States is heavily favoured to win gold after clocking the fastest overall time in the heats. The Americans did that with a couple of backups joining former 100m world champions Christian Coleman and Fred Kerley. For the final, they can bring in reigning world and Olympic 100m champ Noah Lyles and U.S. trials runner-up Kenny Bednarek, who were resting for the 200m final later in the day.

WATCH | Tebogo takes gold in 200m men’s final:

Lyles could be out for redemption after Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo upset him for the 200m gold, spoiling Lyles’ quest for the 100/200 double. Bednarek took silver and Lyles settled for bronze, just like they did in 2021 behind De Grasse. An exhausted-looking Lyles left the track in a wheelchair, and it was revealed that he tested positive for COVID on Monday, putting his status for the relay final up in the air.

Canada also qualified for the women’s 4x100m final on Friday at 1:30 p.m. ET. National 100m record holder Audrey Leduc ran a blistering anchor leg to move Canada into fourth place in its heat in a national-record 42.50 seconds — good for a wild-card entry in the final. The U.S. is also favoured to win this one after 100m silver medallist Sha’Carri Richardson and company ran the best overall time in the heats.

With both Canadian 4×100 teams’ podium chances looking pretty dicey, Canada’s top track and field contender on Friday is shot putter Sarah Mitton. The 2023 world championships silver medallist and reigning indoor world champ made short work of qualifying today, easily clearing the mark for automatic advancement with her first attempt. It ended up being the farthest throw overall by more than half a metre. The women’s shot put final is set for 1:37 p.m. ET on Friday.

Meanwhile, back-to-back world champion Chase Jackson of the United States shockingly failed to qualify for the 12-person final after fouling on her first two attempts. With her main rival out of the way, Mitton is now favoured to win Canada’s first Olympic shot put gold. It would be Canada’s third gold in a throwing event in Paris, following the historic hammer throw victories by Ethan Katzberg and Camryn Rogers.

WATCH | Mitton moves into shot put finals:

Sarah Mitton advances to shot put final on first throw of qualification

Canada’s Sarah Mitton secures a place in the women’s shot put final at Paris 2024 with a distance of 19.77 on her first attempt, easily passing the qualification standard of 19.15.

A couple of the morning heats on Friday are also worth watching.

At 5:30 a.m. ET, world champion Marco Arop runs in the men’s 800m semifinals. He should advance, but Saturday’s final could be one of the most competitive races of the Games, with a handful of men capable of winning gold.

At 4:40 a.m. ET, Canada’s women’s 4x400m relay team will try to qualify for Saturday’s final. They’ve consistently been on the cusp of major podiums, placing fourth at the Tokyo Olympics as well as the 2022 and ’23 world championships, and they took bronze at the prestigious World Athletics Relays in May.

Canada’s men’s 4x400m team didn’t qualify for the Olympics, but watch for 16-year-old American phenom Quincy Wilson in the heats at 5:05 a.m. ET.

Also, check out the women’s 10,000m final at 2:57 p.m. ET. Defending champion Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands will go for her second medal of the Games after taking bronze in the 5,000m. Then, somehow, she plans to run Sunday’s marathon, where she’ll also be among the top contenders.

One more big result from today to share: American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone dominated the women’s 400m hurdles final in a world-record 50.37 seconds. She finished an incredible 1.5 seconds ahead of silver medallist Anna Cockrell of the U.S. and 1.78 seconds ahead of Dutch rival Femke Bol, who took bronze. For context, the winning time in the flat women’s 400m at last year’s world championships was 48.76. Canada’s Savannah Sutherland, who turned 21 yesterday, placed seventh in her first Olympic final.

Other Canadians to watch on Friday

Beach volleyball: Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson in the women’s gold-medal match

Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson are Canada’s best beach volleyball duo and are ranked seventh in the world, so it’s not exactly a shock that they made it here. But their journey to the final has been pretty surprising.

The Canadians were on the brink of elimination after losing two of their three group-stage matches. They needed to win a “lucky loser” playoff to get into the 16-team knockout bracket, where they promptly upset world-championship medallists Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth of the U.S. before defeating a Spanish pair in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.

Today, Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson rallied from a set down to beat the ninth-ranked Swiss team in a three-set thriller to become the first Canadian beach volleyballers to reach an Olympic final. They’re guaranteed to be Canada’s first-ever women’s beach volleyball medallists, and they’ll try to make it a gold under the lights at Eiffel Tower Stadium on Friday at 4:30 p.m. ET. Their opponents are Brazil’s Ana Patricia Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa, the No. 1 team in the world.

Canoe: Katie Vincent and Sloan MacKenzie in the women’s double medal rounds

The Canadians advanced directly to the semifinals at 4:30 a.m. ET after winning their opening-round heat in an Olympic-best 1:54.16 over 500m. The top four in each semifinal heat advance to the final, so expect to see Vincent and MacKenzie challenging for the gold at 6:40 a.m. ET. They’re No. 2 in the betting odds behind China’s Sun Mengya and Xu Shixiao, the reigning Olympic and world champions.

Other Canadian paddlers competing in semifinals (and possibly finals) on Friday are Courtney Stott and Natalie Davison in the women’s kayak double, Pierre-Luc Poulin and Simon McTavish in the men’s kayak double and Connor Fitzpatrick in the men’s canoe single.

In the opening round of the women’s canoe single today, Vincent and Canada’s Sophia Jensen each won their heat to advance straight to Saturday’s semifinals.

Some other things to know

The U.S. men’s basketball team survived a big scare. NBA MVP Nikola Jokic led Serbia to a 13-point lead over the heavily favoured Americans entering the fourth quarter of their semifinal, but the U.S. stormed back to win 95-91 and set up a gold-medal rematch with France. Steph Curry poured in a tournament-high 36 points for the U.S., while Jokic had 17 points and 11 assists for Serbia. The Americans will go for their fifth straight gold on Saturday against the host team, which followed its upset of Canada by taking out No. 2 seed Germany 73-69 in front of another raucous crowd in Paris. NBA rookie of the year Victor Wembanyama had 11 points and seven rebounds for France.

Canada’s Brooke Henderson and Alena Sharp are way down the leaderboard in women’s golf. After a surprise seventh-place showing in the opening round on Wednesday, Sharp regressed to a 4-over 76 today to fall into a tie for 29th at 3 over for the tournament. Henderson is one of the players tied with Sharp after putting a ball in the water on 18 to card a 1-over round. First-round leader Celine Boutier of France struggled to a 4-over 76 that left her tied for sixth at 3 under. Switzerland’s Morgane Métraux is the new leader at 8 under, one shot up on China’s  Yin Ruoning. Read more about the second round here. 

Imane Khelif fights for gold on Friday. The Algerian boxer at the centre of the gender-eligibility scrutiny that has overshadowed the action in the ring in Paris will square off with China’s Yang Liu in the women’s 66kg final at 4:51 p.m. ET. Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who along with Khelif was disqualified from the world championships last year for allegedly failing an eligibility test, fights for the women’s 57kg gold on Saturday.

How to watch the Olympics

Live events are televised on the CBC TV network, TSN and Sportsnet. Or choose exactly what you want to watch by live streaming on CBC Gem or CBC Sports’ Paris 2024 website and app.

Highlights of CBC Sports’ digital coverage include Paris Tonight with host Ariel Helwani, live every night at 11 p.m. ET from Canada Olympic House in Paris; Rise and Stream with host Meg Roberts, identifying the key events to watch each day; Hot Takes with host Dale Manucdoc, highlighting must-see moments; and Paris Pulse with Meg and Dale, discussing trending stories from the Games.

You can also test your Olympic knowledge and win prizes on The Game, a nightly trivia contest with host Craig McMorris. Read more about CBC’s multi-platform Olympics coverage here.