 It was a golden (and silver and bronze) weekend for Canadian athletes | | | On ice, snow, water and solid ground, Canada's Olympic athletes won all kinds of medals in all kinds of sports in all kinds of places over the weekend. Here are the highlights:
Summer McIntosh dominated the U.S. Open Championships.
Seven months before she takes centre stage at the Paris Olympics, the teenage swimmer closed out her phenomenal year by winning two gold medals and a bronze at the U.S. Open in North Carolina.
McIntosh kicked things off Thursday night by easily defeating Katie Ledecky in the women's 400m freestyle, dealing the American star her first loss in the 400 free in a U.S. pool in 11 years. The young Canadian was even more dominant in Friday's 400m individual medley, blowing away the rest of the field by almost eight seconds in an event where she holds the world record and has won the last two world titles. McIntosh added a bronze Saturday in the 200m backstroke, an event she only dabbles in.
Let's quickly recap McIntosh's year: before turning 17 in August, she became the first Canadian swimmer with four world titles when she repeated as gold medallist in the 400m medley and 200m butterfly at the world championships in Japan. Before that, she set world records in the 400 medley and 400 freestyle at the Canadian trials, though the latter was subsequently broken by Australian rival Ariarne Titmus at the worlds.
Ilya Kharun, another of Canada's rising stars, also excelled at the U.S. Open. The 18-year-old won gold in the men's 200m butterfly and took silver in the 100m butterfly — just 0.01 of a second behind American star Caeleb Dressel. Josh Lieno, 21, also grabbed a pair of medals: bronze in the 100m butterfly and silver in Thursday's 50m freestyle. Penny Oleksiak was scheduled for Saturday's women's 100m freestyle but did not swim.
Alex Loutitt soared to another two ski jumping medals.
Last winter, Loutitt became the first Canadian to capture a ski jumping world title and the first Canadian woman to win an individual World Cup competition. The 19-year-old kept rolling at the World Cup season opener in Norway, capturing a silver and a bronze to double her career World Cup medal count to four.
Saturday's bronze came in the normal-size hill event while Sunday's silver came in the large hill, which will be on the women's Olympic program for the first time ever in 2026 in Italy. Read more about Loutitt's rise in this story by CBC Sports' Devin Heroux.
Marion Thénault upstaged the King.
The World Cup moguls and aerials season openers in Finland figured to be another coronation for Mikaël Kingsbury, who was favoured to add to his record 80 World Cup moguls victories. And while the GOAT did win his 116th medal in 136 career World Cup starts, he managed only a bronze this time.
Instead, the Canadian star of the meet was Marion Thénault, who won the women's aerials gold on Sunday for her third career World Cup victory.
Other Canadian medal winners:
* Eliot Grondin, a double medallist in snowboard cross at the 2022 Olympics, won gold at the season opener in France for his fourth career World Cup victory.
* Christa Deguchi and Jessica Klimkait took gold and bronze, respectively, in the women's 57kg division at a judo Grand Slam event in Tokyo. Deguchi and Klimkait are ranked No. 1 and 2 in the world.
* Freestyle skier Édouard Therriault took silver in his first World Cup big air event of the season.
* The Canadian women's 3-on-3 basketball team won the bronze-medal game at the AmeriCup in Puerto Rico. It was the team's third straight trip to the podium at the event.
* Canadian speed skaters captured three medals at a World Cup stop in Norway. After Valérie Maltais placed second in Friday's women's mass start, 2018 Olympic champion Ted-Jan Bloemen grabbed a silver of his own in the men's 10,000m on Saturday before Ivanie Blondin, Carolina Hiller and Maddison Pearman took bronze in Sunday's women's team sprint. | | |  | Canadian swimming phenom Summer McIntosh won a pair of gold medals at the U.S. Open Championships in North Carolina. (Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images) | | | Quickly… | | | Christine Sinclair has one more match left. The final leg of the retiring Canadian soccer star's farewell tour kicked off Friday night in Langford, B.C., where Sinclair came on for the final half hour of Canada's 5-0 rout of Australia, which sat most of its best players. International soccer's all-time goals leader did not score, but she did take part in an adorable pre-game jersey swap with her young nieces Kaitlyn and Kenzie. Sinclair's last match for the Canadian national team takes place tomorrow night against Australia at Vancouver's BC Place, where more than 40,000 fans are expected. Read more about Sinclair's sendoff here.
Final cuts are looming in the new Professional Women's Hockey League. The PWHL's six teams are gathered in Utica, N.Y., site of next year's women's world championship, for a five-day evaluation camp ahead of the league's regular-season launch on New Year's Day. The first scrimmages are happening today, with all three Canadian teams — Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal — in action. General managers and coaches will use the camp to finalize their rosters, which are due a week from today. Read more in this story by the CBC's Karissa Donkin.
The knockout rounds for the NBA's new In-Season Tournament tip off tonight. Boston visits Indiana and New Orleans is at Sacramento for tonight's quarter-finals. Tomorrow night it's New York vs. Milwaukee and Phoenix vs. the Los Angeles Lakers. The winners advance to the semifinals on Thursday night in Las Vegas, which will also host the final on Saturday night. The winning team gets the new NBA Cup and a bonus of $500,000 US for each player and the head coach. The Toronto Raptors were eliminated after going 1-3 in the group stage. | | | And in case you missed it… | | | A few more things from the weekend that you should know about:
Tiger Woods' return went alright.
The 15-time major champion placed 18th in the 20-player Hero World Challenge, the unofficial event in the Bahamas that he hosts. In his first tournament since he had ankle surgery a few weeks after walking away from the Masters last April, Tiger completed all four rounds and finished at even par — 20 shots behind winner Scottie Scheffler.
Woods, who turns 48 later this month, said he felt "a little bit sore" but is sticking to his plan to play about a tournament a month in 2024.
Unbeaten Florida State got snubbed by the College Football Playoff.
It's rare that a team with a perfect record is denied the chance to play for the U.S. national championship, but that's exactly what happened to the 13-0 Seminoles after the CFP selection committee left them out of the four-team bracket. Instead, it'll be top-seeded Michigan (13-0) vs. No. 4 Alabama (12-1) and No. 2 Washington (13-0) vs. No. 3 Texas (12-1) in the semifinals on New Year's Day, with the winner meeting in the title game on Jan. 8.
Florida State, ranked No. 5, will face No. 6 Georgia in the all-but-meaningless Orange Bowl on Dec. 30. The previously unbeaten Bulldogs' bid for a third consecutive championship was ruined by Saturday's upset loss to Alabama in the SEC title game.
Meanwhile, if the NFL used a selection committee for its playoffs, the top seed now would probably be San Francisco after the 49ers crushed Philadelphia 42-19 in a rematch of last season's NFC title game. The Niners lost that one, and at 9-3 they still trail 10-2 Philly by a game for the league's top record. But, subjectively, they sure look like the NFL's best team right now. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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