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Newsletter By Adam Beauchemin, Dan Plouffe, Jackson Starr & Kaitlyn LeBoutillier
The Paris Paralympics are off to a roaring start for the Canadian women’s goalball team. Led by Ottawans Whitney Bogart, Emma Reinke and Amy Burk, Canada routed France 10-0 in their 2024 Games debut.
The Canadians played their first game of the preliminary round in front of a crowd that had no problem getting loud and excited during stoppages in play at the South Paris Arena.
“The atmosphere was electric in that stadium and it was so cool to go from how things were in Tokyo — where everything was completely quiet and nobody was in the stands — to a jam-packed stadium,” Burk said in an interview with Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin. “It was a surreal moment.”
While the French team was visibly amped up and doing their best to get the crowd involved prior to the match, the Canadians were doing their best to stay cool.
“The French players were loving it. They were getting hyped, and we just looked so calm and collected when the game started,” Burk reflected. “They looked like they were going to run through a brick wall.”
The calmness of the veteran Canadian side on their sport’s biggest stage was a key to the visitors’ success as they kept the tournament hosts entirely scoreless throughout the match. When Burk bowled home Canada’s 10th goal of the game, the match came to an immediate end by rule due to the 10-score advantage.
Despite the blowout loss for France, their fans remained energetic.
“The crowd stayed with it the whole time and that was really cool to me to see for parasport in general,” underlined 34-year-old Burk, who is competing in her fifth Paralympics.
The Canadian offence was fuelled by an impressive effort from Reinke, who led the team with a whopping six goals. The 26-year-old star played a total of 16 minutes and netted three goals in each half to earn the double hat trick.
Bogart, who’s now playing in her fourth (and final) Paralympics, was the defensive catalyst for Canada. The 38-year-old acted as an impassable guard in front of the Canadian net, accounting for 46 of the team’s 78 blocked shots while playing the full match.
Burk took 23 throws in total and was glad to see her last one go in to seal the early victory.
“I was struggling a little bit on the accuracy side of the ball. Even if they weren’t going in for me, that was good practice on just self-correcting and adjusting myself for the games ahead,” Burk indicated. “But it was exciting to get the mercy goal.”
The Canadians entered the tournament on the strength of a dramatic gold medal performance at the 2023 Parapan American Games. They are currently the sixth-ranked team in the world, per the International Blind Sports Federation.
Canada’s next match promises to offer a stiffer test as they take on #2-ranked Japan tomorrow.
“We’ve spent some time training with them in the summer and we know the team very well,” Burk noted. “We need to leave this game now with France — that’s done with, it’s over, in the past, and now we focus on Japan.”
The Japanese won their first group match today, defeating South Korea 3-1.
“Japan is a solid team, and they don’t let goals in very easily,” Burk underlined. “So it’s just going to come down to who’s going to make that first mistake. We have to be on top when playing them tomorrow.”
All eight participating women’s goalball teams will play in quarter-final games after pool play, with matchups to be determined based on rankings.
Patrice Dagenais, Canada fall to USA in opening preliminary wheelchair rugby match
Patrice Dagenais and the Canadian wheelchair rugby team fell short in their opening pool match at the Paris Games, losing 51-48 to the United States.
The Canadians kept the game at Champs-de-Mars Arena competitive, but were a step behind the Tokyo Paralympic silver medallists for most of the match, finishing each quarter a few points behind their opponents.
Dagenais, the co-captain of the team, came into the game just over three minutes into the first quarter, and played a total of 13 minutes throughout the game.
“It was a match with a lot of intensity,” Dagenais said in French via the Canadian Paralympic Committee. “We’re certainly disappointed. We would have liked to win this first game, which would have put us in a good position for the rest of the tournament.”
The Canadians were led by an impressive effort from Zak Madell, who tallied a game-high 31 tries, but they had trouble breaking through the American defence at other moments.
“Their strength is they play really well as a team, but they also have players with a lot of length and size,” noted Dagenais, the Ottawa Stingers club player who’s competing in his fourth Paralympics. “Their arms are long, so it’s hard to pass by certain players.
“Our line has a little less function when it comes to passing and catching the ball, so there’s less options for passing, which makes life complicated.”
Dagenais also said that another difference-maker in today’s match was ball security: Canada trailed the USA in turnovers, penalties and steals.
“Defensively, we created many turnovers. The problem was in the second half, we gave them the ball, so that’s what’s difficult to accept. When we had a takeaway, we’d give them the ball again right away,” highlighted the 39-year-old who carries a quasi-assistant coach’s role with the team alongside his playing duties.
The fifth-ranked Canadians are chasing their first podium finish since 2012, when they won a silver medal.
Read More: Patrice Dagenais is eager to relive his Paralympic podium experience from 12 years ago
Tomorrow, they face a must-win scenario in that quest against ninth-ranked Germany, who lost 55-44 to Japan. Canada will conclude pool play against world #3 Japan, with the pool’s top two teams advancing to the semi-finals.
Goalball and wheelchair rugby are again the only two sports on Ottawa Paralympians’ calendars Friday, before Keegan Gaunt adds para athletics to the mix for her debut on Saturday.
Ottawa Paralympians in action on August 30:
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