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Newsletter By Jackson Starr, William Bailey, Adam Beauchemin, Dan Plouffe & Kaitlyn LeBoutillier
It was a disappointing result for archer Eric Peters in his one and only match of the day on Sunday morning at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The 27-year-old first-time Olympian was eliminated with a 6-2 defeat on set points in his knockout match with Italian Mauro Nespoli to finish in a tie for ninth overall.
Peters got off to a difficult start in the first set and couldn’t work his way out of the hole.
“It was tough,” Peters said via the Canadian Olympic Committee. “I tried really hard to put up my best there and I just didn’t feel like I brought it today. Tough to walk away with that sort of shooting, so it is what it is. Still at the Games, the pressure’s high, the environment’s difficult, but, you know, it’s tough.”
Peters fell behind early by shooting 8-8-7 respectively with his first three shots. Nespoli capitalized by shooting 9-9-10 to take the early 2-0 lead.
Peters responded well with a 30-point round, but that was matched by Nespoli who stayed ahead 3-1. The two were once again deadlocked in the third set with the score 4-2, and with Peters finishing the fourth set with two eight-point shots, Nespoli capitalized to take the match and advance.
“There were definitely gaps that I could have taken advantage of, and there was definitely opportunity there for me,” Peters noted. “It’s tough.”
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While today’s loss was difficult, Peters enjoyed several standout moments before then. He defeated Ilfat Abdullin from Kazakhstan in the first round before dispatching highly ranked Dhiraj Bommadevara from India later on the same day in a match that went down to a single-arrow tiebreaker shootout.
“It’s been really cool,” highlighted Peters, who rose from 64th to fifth in the world rankings in just over a year leading into the Olympics. “I had a couple really great matches to begin the session a couple days ago, and it’s been quite an experience.
“Experience of a lifetime, as anyone would say, (I) walk away (from) this as an Olympian. I think I need to spend some time and really think about it, really reflect on the experience a little further away from a loss, but yeah, it’s been good.”
Jacqueline Madogo sets big personal-best in Olympic 200 m debut
In front of yet another packed crowd at the Stade de France, Jacqueline Madogo put on a good show. In her first 200-metre race at the Olympics, she set a new personal-best time of 22.78 seconds – .13 better than her previous top performance.
Running in the outside lane 8, the 24-year-old missed out on qualifying directly for the semifinals by a razor-thin margin, finishing fourth in her heat, just .03 outside of the top-3 qualifiers.
It was a little bit of a slower start out of the gate for Madogo, who found herself out of range of the top-ranked competitors, including the top qualifier in American Gabrielle Thomas. She was able to pick up momentum and speed rounding the corner and heading onto the straight, picking up impressive speed to set her best-ever time.
While this showing was not quite enough to get her through, the soccer player-turned-track and field star will have another shot at reaching the semifinals as she competes in the repechage round Monday morning. Madogo had the top time out of the non-qualifiers across all six heats.
Canoe slalom paddler Lois Betteridge concludes debut Olympics
It was a tough morning on the whitewater for Lois Betteridge, who was eliminated in her final Olympic event after coming up short in the canoe slalom kayak cross heats. The 26-year-old finished third in her heat, just missing the top-2 required to advance to the semis.
It was a feisty start for Betteridge out of the six-metre drop to start the race, as she was tangled up with Eliska Mintalova of Slovakia out of the gate. After falling to fourth place through the middle of the course, she made up for time lost when Mintalova and Algeria’s Carole Diana Bouzidi were tangled up just ahead of her on an upstream gate.
That brought Betteridge back into contention for that second spot and a place in the semis. It was not enough however, as Bouzidi was able to collect herself and recover on time to finish ahead of Betteridge and advance.
Betteridge finishes with experience in three different slalom events. She qualified for the semifinal in the kayak, missed advancing to the semis in the canoe events, and got through the repechage into the heats in the kayak cross.
After missing out on qualifying for the Tokyo Games, Betteridge enjoyed getting the chance to compete in Paris, having grown up always around some kind of boat.
“It’s spectacular,” Betteridge said after her first event in an interview with Sports Pages reporter Jackson Starr. “The crowd is amazing, and it’s pretty special to race in front of so many people in so much noise, it really pulls you down the course… It’s one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had.”
Jessica Gaudreault falls in final water polo group match, to meet Spain in playoffs
Jessica Gaudreault and the Canadian women’s water polo team lost 20-10 in their final group stage match at the hands of the Netherlands Sunday. After another better start from the team, a bad second quarter set Canada back and the Netherlands cruised on to victory.
As it had been in the previous two matches, Canada got off to another solid start, going ahead 4-3 with over two minutes remaining in the first quarter. The Netherlands were able to battle back in the later parts of the first though. After Gaudreault made a solid save on a shot from the left flank, the rebound was put home to tie it up 4-4.
Canada trailed for the rest of the game. It was yet another challenging second period for the Canadians, who quickly fell behind 8-4 conceding three quick goals and getting outscored 6-2 in the second. Canada also struggled at generating much offence.
While the team did put up a better fight in the third, it was not enough as the Netherlands added five goals in the fourth quarter to seal the victory and improve to 3-1 on the tournament.
For her part, Gaudreault stopped eight of the shots she faced in the match, before leaving the game with 2:10 left in the third, replaced by Montreal’s Clara Vulpisi. The switch did not seem to be injury-related and was perhaps made to in order to get Gaudreault some rest ahead of the quarter-finals coming up in two days’ time.
With the loss, Canada falls to 1-3, finishing fourth out of five teams in their group. Canada already knew that it had qualified before the match as China finished 0-4 and had been eliminated from competition.
The task ahead won’t get any easier, with Canada set to face a Spain side which finished a perfect 4-0 in the group stage, while scoring the third-most goals of any team in the tournament with 51 in four games, one back of the Netherlands and two away from USA.
Ottawa Olympians in action on August 5:
Preview: Lauren Gale will take to track for first time in second Olympics
Lauren Gale’s long-awaited Olympics debut finally arrives on Monday. The Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club athlete will compete in the women’s 400 m competition. While Gale did attend the Tokyo Games as one of six possible 4×400 m relay runners, but she was not selected to compete in the end.
“Just being on the sidelines watching my teammates – as much as I was in tears, very excited for them because they ran so well, I wanted to be out there as well running with them,” Gale reflected in an interview with Sports Pages reporter Jackson Starr before heading to Paris. “Very excited to get to run this time. It’s going to be a great crowd with lots more people, so it should be very exciting.”
Gale comes into these Games with a wealth of success and experience. With South Carleton High School, she won three OFSAA provincial high school gold medals and was a Canadian under-16 200 m champion in 2015, and then won 400 m silver medals the next year at both the U18 and U20 levels.
She continued her success in college while attending Colorado State, including a school record in the 400 m and a Mountain West conference title. Heading into the Olympics, Gale said her goal is to get to the semifinals of the 400 m and win a medal with her 4×400 metre relay team.
“Representing my country is always an honour,” she underlined. “To put the uniform on with the flag, it’s such a great feeling when you get to all these big meets and you know that you’re representing Canada and you’ve got such great teammates who are counting on you. Overall, it’s a great experience and I just love the sport.”
Diver Kate Miller to compete in her first individual competition
Also tomorrow: After just missing out on the podium in the 10 m synchronized diving competition alongside Calgary’s Caeli McKay this past Wednesday, 19-year-old Ottawa diver Kate Miller shifts her focus to the 10 m individual competition on Monday morning.
In her last event, the duo of Miller and McKay started off well, and found themselves in podium position heading into the final dive. However, as the British diving duo of Lois Toulson and Andrea Spendolini-Siriex put up a very strong score of 77.76 on their last dive, Canada needed to be perfect in order to find the podium, and despite a relatively strong 68.16 score, fell just short finishing in fourth place.
The pair were fighting tears during their post-event interview on CBC after coming so close to the podium, but Miller recognized the value of the experience and the accomplishment of making it to the Olympics.
“We’re going to focus on what the task is at hand now and that’s individual,” added the Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club product. “We’re going to cheer each other on and hopefully we can go out there and do our best.”
Miller is one of 29 divers set to compete in the preliminary round, with the top-18 moving on the semi-finals, with the final taking place Tuesday.
And Jacqueline Madogo will be back on the track for the women’s 200 m repechage to try and qualify for the semifinals.
Madogo has once again drawn lane 8, in the first heat of the competition.
She’ll need to win her heat or be among the two next-best times from the four heats to advance to the semis, which take place later tomorrow.
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