By Dan Plouffe
Sam Cornett earned her third medal of the Pan Am Games on Friday night at Exhibition Place with a silver in the women’s team event, but after winning singles bronze and doubles silver earlier, the 24-year-old veteran of the Canadian women’s squash team was disappointed to not complete her collection.
“We did well. But when you have high expectations and you don’t get what you want, it still hurts a little bit,” explained Cornett, who lost a 3-11, 2-11, 8-11 contest to top-10 world-ranked player Amanda Sobhy to drop the second leg of the best-of-3 team event with USA. “It’s an overall sense of accomplishment, and a tiny little hole that I want to fill one day.”
Ottawa’s streak of six consecutive days winning a medal came to an end Saturday with a trio of 5th-place finishes in swimming and modern pentathlon.
The result was particularly devastating for London 2012 Olympic pentathlete Melanie McCann. With 2016 Olympic berths awarded to the top-5 nations, the 25-year-old would have earned her ticket to Rio had teammate Donna Vakalis not outrun her in the final event of the day to finish 4th and take the Canadian berth.
Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson won her women’s 200-metre individual medley heat in the morning, but didn’t improve her time in the final to place 5th.
After a knotted ribbon disrupted their first routine, Lucinda Nowell and the Canadian rhythmic gymnastics group team couldn’t pull out of 5th place in the all-around competition despite placing 3rd in the 6 clubs, 2 hoops event.
Cam Smedley qualified 3rd in both the men’s C-1 and C-2 canoe slalom competition to advance to Sunday’s final in Minden.
Look for more detailed coverage in August’s Ottawa Sportspage newspaper.
Check out more photos from Sportspage photographer Steve Kingsman http://stevekingsman.photoshelter.com/gallery-collection/Toronto-Pan-Am-Games-2015/C0000RjOJ9eEDQHU here.