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Newsletter By Adam Beauchemin, Jackson Starr, Dan Plouffe & Kaitlyn LeBoutillier
Canada torched by Israeli star Ben David in goalball quarter-final loss
The Canadian women’s goalball team met its match today in the quarter-finals of the Paris 2024 Paralympics, and her name was Lihi Ben David.
Israel’s Opening Ceremonies flag bearer rocked Canada for four goals – double the total their opponents scored combined in three preliminary round games – as Ottawa’s Amy Burk, Whitney Bogart and Emma Reinke were eliminated from medal contention with a 5-1 defeat.
Ben David threw the ball with noticeably greater velocity than any previous Canadian opponent in the tournament, and it took less than 20 seconds for her to find the back of the goal. She struck twice more before halftime to deal Canada a daunting 3-0 deficit.
But Burk gave Canada hope to start the second half. The five-time Paralympian blocked Ben David’s first throw, then got up and skipped the ball into the corner she’d come very close to hitting several times earlier to bring Canada within two.
Canada’s offensive efforts ran dry from there though and Israel kept on cruising with two more goals to advance decisively on to the medal round. With the loss, Canada is now relegated to the classification playoff branch where they will be competing to earn fifth place in the tournament.
Sprinter Bianca Borgella injured during 100 m final
While fighting for a medal position early in the T13 women’s 100-metre para-athletics final, Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club sprinter Bianca Borgella crumpled to the track while clutching her left leg.
The 21-year-old Paralympic rookie was racing out of the seventh lane for the finals. She was running strong in fourth place when suddenly she grabbed her leg around the 30-metre mark and went down on the track.
The 2023 World Championships 100 m bronze medallist pulled herself back up and hobbled to the finish line, counting an official time of 25.11 seconds for last place.
Borgella noted in a pre-Games interview with Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin that she’d injured her hamstring earlier this summer. The graduate of St. Francis-Xavier Catholic High School in Hammond spent the weeks ahead of the Paralympics rehabbing her injury and she only returned to running on spikes a week before the Games began.
“Hopefully I can be running full speed again in Barcelona,” Borgella said just before leaving for her team’s pre-Games training camp in Spain. “Basically I’m trying not to overstrain the hamstring. Because I’m a hamstring runner, they’ve been trying to make sure I run with my glutes and my hips and not my hammies.”
Azerbaijan’s Lamiya Valiyeva earned the gold medal while posting a new world record time of 11.76 in the T13 women’s class for athletes with visual impairments. Silver went to Rayane Soares da Silva from Brazil who nearly overtook Valiyeva for gold, posting an impressive 11.78. Ireland’s Orla Comerford earned bronze with a time of 11.94.
Borgella raced earlier in the day to qualify for the finals in the preliminary heats. In the qualifying round, she finished in second place in her heat with a time of 12.15 — the fourth-fastest performance of the first round.
Borgella’s availability for the 4×100 m universal relay was already in question due to her injured hamstring, and now it is likely that her first Games are complete.
Wheelchair fencer Trinity Lowthian bounced from sabre event with 1-point defeat
Paralympic rookie Trinity Lowthian lost her opening bout 15-8 to South Korea’s Eun Hye Cho and then took a narrow 15-14 defeat against Brazil’s Monica Santos in the repechage round of the women’s category B sabre competition today in Paris.
At 22 years old and with only two years of competitive fencing behind her, the Stittsville athlete entered the event ranked 16th internationally, though her main focus at the Games is Friday’s epée event, where she’s ranked eighth.
“I really wanted to take today to have fun and then on Friday to focus in and really be in the zone,” Lowthian said via the Canadian Paralympic Committee. “Today was my day to be out of the zone and enjoy everything else.”
Lowthian noted that she also used her first event to prepare herself mentally for the epée competition ahead.
“I’m really glad I had today also just to go through it so I’m familiar with it for epée day,” she added. “We did the walkthrough of the venue yesterday and then today there were differences, like we needed to transfer to the fencing chairs before getting there, which never happens at any other competition. So it’s just little things like that, it’s nice to know before it would really shake me.”
While Lowthian is gearing up to give the epée her all, the fencer also says she wants to make sure she continues to take in the moment.
“Really focusing, really wanting to do well. Get several wins and just enjoy the day too — that’s why I’m here,” she indicated.
Patrice Dagenais has no plans to leave wheelchair rugby
For Team Canada wheelchair rugby co-captain Patrice Dagenais, one thing is certain: wheelchair rugby is still in his future.
Yesterday, Canada played its final match of the tournament, losing a closely fought match to France 53-50 to finish in sixth place.
The 39-year-old Paralympian now has four Summer Games under his belt, and while Dagenais says it’s too soon to say whether he’ll be shooting for a fifth appearance in the 2028 Los Angeles games, he knows he’ll still be involved in the sport after Paris.
“I’ll take a break and see what my goals are for the next few years,” Dagenais told Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin in an interview today. “It’s hard to make a decision right now with all the emotions that are involved in this Paralympic Games, but absolutely, whatever my decision is, I will stay involved in the sport.”
For Dagenais, one of the best parts of the Paris Games was the atmosphere. The wheelchair rugby team played in front of packed houses at the Champs-de-Mars Arena — a temporary building made specifically for the Summer Games.
Fans continuously flooded the arena with noise during each of Canada’s contests.
“It was pretty amazing to have the fans back in the crowd cheering us on,” Dagenais highlighted. “It felt like a real Paralympic Games, something that was missing a little bit in Tokyo. So competing in front of so many people was definitely special.”
Dagenais anticipated that the crowd would be a factor in yesterday’s match against the host nation.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game. France has a good team, and they’re playing on home soil, so they had the fans cheering loud in the crowd,” he indicated. “The energy was electric in that building, for sure.”
The result of their game against France may not have been a win, but Dagenais says his team played well.
“We did our best to try to get back in — we finished the first half pretty strong, but then the second half, made a few turnovers, and our defence was not able to get many back in the fourth, so they ended up leading by three,” he outlined. “It’s a good French team, but I think our team played pretty well.”
While Dagenais and the Canadians were unable to reclaim a podium spot, the team co-captain from Embrun says he’s proud of his performance in the tournament, having played heavy minutes in all of Canada’s games.
“Even though we finished sixth, we still fought hard and didn’t give up a few times we were trailing and fought back to get back to even in each game. I think overall it was a good experience and I’m proud of the team,” Dagenais underlined.
Dagenais will have his local club — the Ottawa Stingers, where he acts as club president — to return to once he’s back in Canada. But first, he’ll be enjoying a much-deserved moment of relaxation.
“The plan right now is to go on vacation,” Dagenais noted. “I’m heading to Spain for about a week, so I’m going to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer, which has gone by very fast.”
Ottawa Paralympians in action on September 4:
Day 7 Preview: 4-time Paralympian Whitney Bogart will finish goalball career tomorrow
The dream finish for Whitney Bogart was to leave her fourth Paralympics with her first medal. That hope sunk today with the Canadian women’s goalball team’s quarter-final defeat to Israel, but tomorrow’s fifth-place match may provide a lower-stakes send-off for one of the sport’s legends in Canada.
Bogart doesn’t take a lot of throws for Team Canada, but she sure takes a lot of bumps.
As the team’s top defender, almost always lined up in the centre position, Bogart dives on the floor over and over again to block shots from the opposing team, who fire about 100 per game.
It’s a heart-and-soul kind of role, and Bogart acts as a reliable leader who grounds the team thanks to her even-keeled personality.
At practice, teasing, taunts and jabs abound between the players, and Bogart is definitely the most frequent target. The chirping is often directed at “Team Mom” as they like to call Bogart, who is Team Canada’s eldest member by a whole five months.
But in reality, the ribbing is playful between long-time teammates who are immensely comfortable with one another. It’s also perhaps a cover for some difficult feelings that will come to the surface with Bogart set to retire from the sport after the Paris Paralympics.
“I’m really sad that she’s retired after this,” teammate Emma Reinke underlined in a pre-Games interview with Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Jackson Starr. “I haven’t quite processed it yet, just because it is going to be kind of emotional, I think.”
Goalball has been a central part of Bogart’s life for the majority of it. Originally from Marathon in northern Ontario, the athlete who has albinism was first introduced to the sport when she moved to Brantford to attend the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind.
Bogart joined Team Ontario in 2002 and then represented Canada for the first time in 2005. On top of her Paralympic appearances in London, Rio and Tokyo, she has also competed at four Parapan Am Games, winning bronze medals each time before a breakthrough gold last fall qualified the team for the Paris Paralympics.
At her side for all the big moments, including a 2011 International Blind Sport Association world title, was Amy Burk, herself a five-time Paralympian. The long-time friends and teammates became family when Burk married Bogart’s twin brother Tyler (and she assumed her teammate’s birth family name in the process).
The sisters-in-law each have two children of similar ages, and they live a few minutes from each other in Nepean.
In a springtime interview with Sports Pages executive director Dan Plouffe, Bogart said that what she loves most about her sport after a quarter-century of involvement remains the team dynamic.
The 38-year-old will have her teammates at her side, and her family in the stands, when she wears the maple leaf for one final time Wednesday as Canada plays for fifth place against Japan, which won their preliminary round meeting 2-1.
“I love representing Canada,” Bogart underlined before the Games. “I think it’s super cool what we get to do.”
The Canadian women’s goalball team featuring Bogart, Burk and Reinke will be the only Ottawa athletes competing in Paris tomorrow.
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