Soccer win, basketball loss and Oshawa Steeplechaser highlight Olympic weekend for Durham Region athletes
Published August 3, 2021 at 4:04 pm
The Canadian women’s soccer team will play for gold, an Oshawa runner takes sixth in an Olympic final and the Women’s Basketball team is out of the Games in a busy weekend for Durham Region athletes in Tokyo.
The big game will be on the soccer pitch when Nichelle Prince (Ajax), Allysha Chapman (Courtice), Jayde Riviere (Pickering) and Kailen Sheridan (Whitby) take on Sweden for the gold medal Thursday night after beating the U.S.A. 1-0 in the semi-final.
On the track Matt Hughes raced to a sixth-place finish in the 3,000-metre Steeplechase, the best-ever performance by a Canadian in the event, but the news wasn’t as good for the basketball team.
A loss to Spain placed them third in their pool, and though a plus-7 points differential would normally be enough to get to the quarter-finals as a wild card, an Australian blowout of Puerto Rico in the other pool sent the Canadians – who had been considered a medal contender – home to prepare for their next competition.
Australia, who needed to win by 23 in that game, won by 27.
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Pickering’s Shaina Pellington came off the bench in Canada’s loss to Spain.
In other track news, Markham’s Andre De Grasse, who got his start in sprinting training in Pickering, and Toronto’s Aaron Brown both qualified for the final in the 200 metres. De Grasse already has a bronze in the 100 in these Games to go with three medals he won in Rio.
Pickering’s Pierce LePage begins his quest for Decathlon gold in Tokyo tonight.
Photo by Leah Hennel, COC
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