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Newsletter By Adam Beauchemin, Dan Plouffe, Jackson Starr & Kaitlyn LeBoutillier
After a damaging opening-day defeat to USA, Patrice Dagenais and the Canadian wheelchair rugby team kept their podium chances alive with a 54-47 victory over Germany at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
The Canadians now carry a 1-1 record and have an outside shot at advancing to the semi-finals.
The first period was closely fought and ended with the Canucks ahead 13-12. But the scoreline opened up for the Canadians in the second period as they forced Germany to commit several errors and capitalized on their scoring chances en route to a healthy lead that they maintained for the rest of the match.
“To be honest, we have more depth than Germany, so I believe they got tired after the first quarter,” Dagenais said in an interview with Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin. “The lineup that came in the second matched up well against them and executed the game plan on defence very well, and that created a few turnovers for us. And then we felt that we got control of the game at that point.”
Canada’s offence once again ran through Zak Madell, who counted 28 tries for the team. The Canadians controlled the ball well throughout the match and won the turnover battle 7 to 3, which Dagenais says was the difference between their victory today and their 51-48 loss to the Americans yesterday.
“We had some goals prior to the game — one was execution on offence and taking care of the ball,” noted Dagenais, who played 6 minutes and 10 seconds and snatched two steals to help Canada to victory. “We made too many unforced turnovers yesterday, which cost us the game because defensively, we played well.”
Today’s match was played in front of yet another lively crowd that packed the house at the Champs-des-Mars Arena in Paris.
“Wheelchair rugby is definitely a hot ticket. We have thousands of people in the crowd cheering us on from different countries,” highlighted the Ottawa Stingers player and club president from Embrun. “It’s just loud, so it just makes for an awesome atmosphere.”
It hearkened back to memories of the four-time Paralympian’s first Games at London 2012, with exceptional support and enthusiasm from the hosts.
Dagenais is now a veteran leader and Canadian team co-captain. His aim for the Paris Games is to get Canada back on the podium for the first time since his rookie Paralympic appearance when he finished as runner-up 12 years ago.
“It would be great — it’s been a while. London were my first Games, but also my favourite ones with the whole experience of winning the silver medal,” Dagenais said in a pre-Games interview with Beauchemin.
Dagenais and Team Canada finished fourth and fifth in Rio and Tokyo, and they are currently ranked fifth in the World Wheelchair Rugby rankings.
“The top six — even top seven — are really close and it’s going to be a fight,” Dagenais added. “It’s not going to be easy, but it is possible for us to sneak in a couple close wins and hopefully end up on the podium.”
After today’s win, the Canadians are now sitting with a 1-1 record. Tomorrow they’ll play their third and final group stage match against 2-0 Japan, who beat USA 45-42 today.
Canada will need to win in order to create a three-way tie at the top of the group, from which only the top two teams will advance to the semi-finals.
That would set in motion a tiebreaking scenario to determine who moves on. The Canadians will need to beat Japan by at least four points to secure their spot in the semis, though a three-point win would also move the Canadians ahead if they end up scoring the most tries out of games between Canada, USA and Japan.
“We wanted to build momentum today, because tomorrow night we have a huge game,” Dagenais highlighted. “We need to beat Japan by three points for us to advance to the semi-finals. So we basically need to play one of our best games ever to be able to accomplish this.”
The Canadians played Japan in June in the Wheelchair Rugby Canada Cup, where they lost the match 44-42 in Vancouver.
“It wasn’t our best game,” Dagenais said of that meeting. “We watched video, we’re making adjustments, so we’re excited to see if those adjustments are going to pay off. I think we will be better, but at the same time, we know that Japan has a very strong team.”
While the Canadians may have an uphill battle ahead of them to advance in the tournament, Dagenais remains confident.
“They’re probably the favourite at the moment to win this tournament, but we can beat them,” he underlined. “It’s just a matter of being focused and executing the game plan in order to give us a chance to win.”
The 39-year-old former junior hockey player often offers another set of coach’s eyes when he’s not on the floor for Team Canada. Dagenais became paralyzed from the chest down as a result of a construction accident when he was 18.
You can read more about his path to Paris in Beauchemin’s full profile on Dagenais here.
Canadian goalball team falls to Japan on late goal
The Canadian women’s goalball team lost a 2-1 nailbiter to Japan in their second match of the Paris Games.
The Canadian team features a trio of Ottawa athletes — Emma Reinke, Whitney Bogart and Amy Burk — and they entered today’s match off the back of a dominant 10-0 tournament-opening victory over France.
The contest started as well as the 2023 Parapan Am Games champions could have hoped when Reinke put Canada on the scoreboard with her first throw of the day only 15 seconds into the game. It was the 26-year-old’s seventh goal of the tournament after her day against the French.
“I’ve just built up confidence over the last couple of years,” Reinke said via the Canadian Paralympic Committee. “Honestly, I think a lot might come from Santiago too and our world championships and how we’ve just progressed so much as a team that we truly have a good shot.”
The teams continued to exchange chances for much of the first half, but Japan’s Norika Hagiwara launched a ball between Bogart and Meghan Mahon with just under two minutes left in the half to tie the game at 1-1.
The contest continued to be a defensive chess match for much of the second half, and the Canadians’ net-front protection was once again led by defensive stalwart Bogart, who racked up a game-leading 80 blocks.
In the second half, Hagiwara proved to be the difference-maker yet another time for Japan. She slid a cross-court shot between Bogart and Mahon with only 1:17 left in the match.
“It was awesome execution by the whole team. Japan’s a really solid defensive squad to play against, they’re ranked #2 in the world,” Burk, who had six blocks and 24 throws in the match, said via the CPC. “We knew if we were going to beat them we were going to have to start off by being patient — not getting suckered into not scoring.
“We had multiple chances, at one point we had the ball on the goal line. It’s sports, sometimes it doesn’t always go your way. But, the team held on until the final whistle. There was no giving up at all.”
The Canadians will now have a day off before playing South Korea on Sunday for their final match in the group stage.
“We’re expecting a tight defensive game,” noted Burk. “The Asian countries play very similarly, so we know we’re not going to be pounding goals into them super fast, but it’s the same execution for today. It’s going to be just go into the game, be calm, be patient and just have confidence in what our team can do.”
All eight participating teams will advance to the quarter-finals in goalball, with matchups determined based on standings.
Ottawa Paralympians in action on August 31:
Day 3 Preview: Keegan Gaunt takes to the track, with Paralympian parents in the stands
Middle-distance runner Keegan Gaunt will be making her Paralympics debut tomorrow in the women’s T13 1,500 metres with at least two Paralympic medallists cheering her on in the stands: her parents Robbi Weldon and Robert Gaunt.
Gaunt’s father won a silver medal with Canada’s goalball team in the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta. Her mother attended four consecutive Paralympics from 2010 to 2016 – twice as a cross-country skier, and twice as a cyclist. Weldon won a cycling road race gold medal at the 2012 Games in London, with her daughter on hand.
“I’m really looking forward to race day and knowing that all of my family is in the stands,” Gaunt said in an interview with Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin prior to the Games. “When I was younger, I traveled twice to watch my mom compete at the Paralympics with my grandma, and now my grandma’s coming to watch me in Paris.”
Like her mother, Gaunt had Stargardt Disease, which has progressively deteriorated her central vision and left her with blind spots. She cites her mother’s appearances in the Paralympics as a major source of inspiration.
“My dad competed prior to me being born, but my mom [competed] when I was growing up,” recounted the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club product. “Being able to watch her compete definitely inspired me to do what I do now and try to get to that level that she was at.”
Gaunt is the Canadian record holder in the 1,500 m, and her season-best performance of 4:46.86 in the 1,500 m is the sixth-fastest time posted by athletes in her class this year.
You can read Beauchemin’s full profile on Gaunt here.
As highlighted in coverage above, Patrice Dagenais will also be back in action tomorrow for a do-or-die match against Japan in the Canadian wheelchair rugby team’s last pool game.
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