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Newsletter By Jackson Starr, Adam Beauchemin, Dan Plouffe & Kaitlyn LeBoutillier
Despite running a personal-best time of 22.78 seconds, Ottawa’s Jacqueline Madogo missed qualifying for the semi-finals of the women’s 200 metres by .03 seconds on her first try Sunday, so there was only one thing left to do – run even faster.
Competing in Monday’s repechage round, Madogo eclipsed her standard by another .2 seconds for a 22.58 performance to dust the field in her heat and easily qualify for the semifinals with her first-place finish.
“How many people get to say they ran at the Olympics and had two personal bests?” Madogo beamed in a post-race interview with CBC.
The 24-year-old is competing in her first Olympics, just four seasons into her track-and-field pursuit after switching over from soccer while at the University of Guelph.
“This is what happens when you come to this sport later in life. You can kind of surprise yourself on a world stage with 70,000+ people,” CBC analyst Michael Smith said on the race broadcast. “A two-tenths of a second personal-best doesn’t sound like much to the layman, but that’s a massive gap and to do it on the world stage, what a wonderful effort.”
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Starting in lane eight, Madogo, who previously competed in the 100 m, built momentum and speed around the bend and picked up her pace down the final straight, separating from the rest of the competitors and collecting first place by several strides.
After the race ended, Madogo immediately looked up to the video board and was smiling from ear to ear as she saw her time, slamming the ground in celebration. It was a similar celebration to the one Madogo had after setting her personal best a day prior.
“I was not expecting it to be another big jump, another PB, so that was just a cherry on top,” Madogo said via the Canadian Olympic Committee. “Yesterday I was really happy with the PB and I wanted to come out here and execute. I felt really good this morning, so my coach said, ‘Be where your feet are, and just trust yourself,’ and that’s what I did during the warm-up, and that’s what I kept telling myself on the track when I setup my blocks.
“It’s clicking at the right time, which I’m happy about. The season has been going great, so this is just a continuing to build and progressing.”
The win sent Madogo to the semifinals later in the day. In those semis, the former West Ottawa Soccer Club player lined up alongside some of the fastest sprinters in the world, including the likes of Gabrielle Thomas from the USA and Dina Asher-Smith from Great Britain.
Madogo didn’t quite match her earlier effort, running 22.81 to finish seventh in her heat and 20th overall – not far beyond Gatineau’s Audrey Leduc, who was 15th.
“I didn’t come here with any expectations or the weight of the world on my shoulders,” Madogo told Canadian Running. “I think I’m just running free, seeing what I can do, what my body can do and what my preparation has taught me to do. It’s been a really fun ride. I’m enjoying every moment of it. Not putting much pressure on myself is what’s getting me through this.”
Madogo will now compete in the 4×100 m relay competition beginning on Thursday.
Lauren Gale makes Olympic racing debut in women’s 400 m
Lauren Gale of the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club will also be taking to the repechage round tomorrow in her Olympic debut, albeit without the momentum of a personal-best in the women’s 400 m.
Gale, who attended the Tokyo Olympics as one of six possible 4×400 m relay runners but was not selected to compete, made her racing debut with the midday sun shining down on the track at Stade de France.
The 24-year-old completed her lap in 53.13 – well off the pace required for direct qualification to the semifinals and her personal-record time of 50.47, which she set in June.
She ranked 43rd and will now race in the repechage round Tuesday morning.
Kate Miller falls just short of 10 m platform diving semis
Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club product Kate Miller just missed out on a chance to compete in the semifinals of the women’s 10 m platform competition on Monday morning. The 19-year-old finished 20th in the competition, with the top-18 moving on to the semis.
Miller scored 266.30 points across her five dives, which left her 10.7 behind the cut line. Her matching best scores of 62.40 came on her second and final dives, though her fourth dive, a back 3 1/2 somersaults, was her undoing as she dropped from 14th in the standings to 25th with a score of 33.00.
“You have to do everything super consistently,” Miller noted via the COC. “You can’t miss like that. I thought I was going to be OK, but when I finished, I saw on my coach’s face that I was not going to be going in.”
Earlier in Paris, Miller earned a fourth-place finish in the 10 m synchronized event with Calgary’s Caeli McKay. McKay ranked third in the preliminary round of the individual competition and seventh in the semifinal to advance to tomorrow’s final.
Miller, who opted for a gap year after completing high school in order to pursue the Olympics with McKay, previously committed to attend the University of Southern California in Los Angeles – site of the 2028 Olympics.
Ottawa Olympians in action on August 6:
Preview: Pair of paddlers begin competition in Paris
Despite being over a decade apart in age, both Toshka Besharah-Hrebacka and Natalie Davidson will paddle in their first Olympics together in the same boat.
Alongside Halifax’s Riley Melanson and Pickering’s Courtney Stott, the pair from the Rideau Canoe Club will be competing in the women’s kayak four 500 m heats on Tuesday morning in search of a top-3 finish to earn direct qualification to the A final.
“They’re both outstanding athletes who have had different paths to the Games,” Canoe-Kayak Canada chief technical officer and team leader of Canada’s Paris paddling delegation Ian Mortimer told Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin before the Games. “They’re very excited and they’re also paddling really well, so we’re excited to see how they perform against the rest of the world.”
The more experienced Davison helped Canada qualify for the Tokyo Games a few summers ago, but was not selected for the Olympic team, which finished 11th in competition. While coming to stardom later in the sport, Davison earned her first opportunity to compete in an ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup in 2017.
The former Carleton Place Canoe Club athlete will now make her Olympic debut in Paris at age 32. Davison will also be competing in the women’s kayak double 500 m event, which will be held after the K-4 event on Tuesday as well.
Besharah-Hrebacka is also making her Olympics debut with a very successful track record in the sport. The 21-year-old Ashbury College graduate won five gold medals at the 2019 national championships, cementing her place as a top talent from the nation’s capital.
The youngest member of the Canadian quartet won a bronze medal at the 2019 ICF Canoe Sprint Junior World Championship in the K-4 event, and again at the 2021 junior worlds in the K-1 200 m, one year before making her senior worlds debut.
The same Canadian K-4 lineup for Paris appeared at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games in Chile, where they brought home a silver medal. The team qualified for the Olympics at the 2023 World Championships, finishing first in the B final and 10th overall.
Jessica Gaudreault takes on powerhouse Spain in water polo quarters
Also in action tomorrow will be water polo player Jessica Gaudreault. After a 1-3 finish in the group stage, goalkeeper Gaudreault and the Canadian women’s water polo team will be competing in the quarterfinals against Spain. It’s going to be a difficult test for the Canadians, with Spain having finished 4-0 in the group stage while scoring 51 goals across the four contests.
For Canada, they won their second match of the tournament against winless China, while dropping the other three group stage matches against Australia, Hungary and the Netherlands.
Throughout the group stage, large crowds have packed the Paris La Défence Arena for women’s water polo. That won’t be any different for Tuesday’s quarterfinal match.
“We were all talking afterwards, it was the first time that we entered a foreign stadium and we heard people singing the national anthem, chanting ‘Canada,’” she said in an interview with the Sports Pages’ Jackson Starr after the team’s first match against Hungary. “When the anthem was playing, it definitely was more of an emotional moment. I think a lot of us felt good.”
The winner of the quarterfinal match will advance to the semis, while the loser will compete in a 5-8 classification match.
Track cyclist Ariane Bonhomme will get her second Olympic Games underway in the women’s team pursuit event tomorrow. The Ottawa Bicycle Club product from Gatineau competed in her first Olympics in Tokyo in a much different role, as the rookie among a veteran group that finished fourth.
Now the 29-year-old is the veteran of a young group – her team’s only returning member from Tokyo.
“I’m just so excited to see my current teammates – it’s all their first Olympics,” she indicated in an interview with the Sports Pages’ Adam Beauchemin before the Games. “I just love seeing their excitement, and to be able to be that grounding piece for the team, being like, ‘you know what girl? It’s all going to come together; we just need to believe that we can do this.’”
Tomorrow’s time trial qualifying round will determine the matchups for the first round on Wednesday.
And Lauren Gale will be competing in the third heat of the repechage for her second chance to reach Wednesday’s women’s 400 m semifinals.
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