By Dan Plouffe
The winning feeling is strong at the University of Ottawa this fall as all three of their fall U Sports varsity sports teams kept their perfect records intact this past weekend, earning wins in football, rugby and soccer.
The Gee-Gees’ defence allowed only a rouge in the fourth quarter as the uOttawa football team emerged with a 20-18 road victory over the Laurier Golden Hawks, who were ranked fifth in Canada entering the game.
Emyl Gregoire finished a 75-yard drive with a one-yard touchdown for uOttawa’s winning points at the end of the third quarter, while runningback Souleymane Camara scored the Gee-Gees’ other major to highlight his 135 yards gained on the ground for the day.
Quarterback Josh Janssen passed for 245 yards, while Jaxxon Brashear led the Gee-Gees with 7.5 tackles, followed by Denny Ferdinand and James Lannon with 6.5.
The 3-0 Gee-Gees are tied for first place in the OUA with McMaster, while Western and Queen’s are also unbeaten at 2-0. The Carleton Ravens fell to 0-3 with a 60-15 thrashing at 1-2 Guelph.
The Gee-Gees women’s rugby team’s defence held strong as well in the final moments of their 26-21 road victory at Concordia.
Brinten Comeau, Bronwen Earle, Naomi Lapp and Marley Magnusson scored tries for uOttawa, while Claire Bennett booted three converts to surpass 100 career points as the Gee-Gees improved to 3-0, tied with Laval atop the Quebec conference standings.
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The Gee-Gees’ Grace Dingwall was not in the lineup, for good reason. Alongside fellow Ottawa players Rachel Cullum of Queen’s University and ShonDreya Smardon from the University of Ottawa, Dingwall helped Team Canada to the gold medal at the FISU World University Championship Rugby Sevens in South Africa.
Competing in the world university rugby sevens tournament, the Canadians overcame their lone defeat of the group stage to top Australia 19-14 in the semi-final and then blanked France 20-0 in the gold medal match.
In women’s soccer, Sabrina Mangiaracina scored a hat trick as the Gee-Gees powered past RMC 5-0 to improve their record to 4-0 and become the OUA East division’s only unbeaten team.
Francesca Mureta and Eva Bouity scored the other goals as uOttawa launched 20 shots towards the Paladins. Goalkeeper Laura Salgado had to make only one save for her second clean sheet of the season.
The 1-2-1 Carleton soccer women earned a 0-0 draw at Queen’s, while the Carleton soccer men lost to Queen’s 3-0 and Ontario Tech 1-0 to stand with a 1-2-1 record as well.
The University of Ottawa’s Étienne Jolicoeur was one of four Canadian representatives at the 2026 FISU World University Weightlifting Championship in Qatar.
The student-athlete from Lachute, QC placed fourth overall in the men’s 75-kilogram weight class with a 284 kg total.
Jolicoeur came within 1 kg of the podium with his 163 kg clean-and-jerk.
MAARTEN DUIF WINS FIRST PARA CYCLING WORLD MEDAL, 3 FROM OTTAWA SELECTED TO TEAM CANADA FOR UCI ROAD WORLDS IN MONTREAL
Maarten Duif of Carleton Place won his first career medal at the UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships in Alabama, taking silver in the men’s handbike-1 road race.
“I didn’t think I had it in the start and then it all just came together in that first lap,” Duif said via Cycling Canada. “Very good competitors out here and I tried to make the most it, and then at the end I claimed silver and it’s such an honour to have the Canadian jersey on. Set my goals ambitious for this, and it’s such a reality shock to come out with silver.
The 41-year-old was also fifth in the men’s H1 time trial. He won four medals earlier this season in a pair of World Cup races.
Three Ottawa cyclists have been selected to race for Canada at the home UCI Road Cycling World Championships from Sept. 19-27 in Montreal.
Former WorldTour rider Michael Woods, who has focused primarily on gravel cycling since his retirement from professional road racing, will get the farewell he missed last year when an injury robbed him of the chance to finish his season on home soil.
“If the world championships were anywhere else but Montreal, I wouldn’t be doing them,” the 39-year-old three-time Olympian told The Canadian Press. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity … it has such, such big meaning to me that, yeah, I had to do this.
“But it’s the last one. For sure, it’s the last one.”
Derek Gee-West, who earned a top-10 general classification finish at the 2024 Tour de France, will likely be Canada’s top prospect in the men’s elite race.
Both he and Woods warmed up for the worlds by riding in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and Montréal UCI races this past weekend.
Gee-West was 31st and Woods 66th in Quebec, while Woods placed 18th in Montreal and Gee-West did not finish.
Carter de Veer completes the local Team Canada contingent for the worlds, set to compete in the junior men’s events.
4 OTTAWA RUGBY PLAYERS APPEAR FOR TEAM CANADA
The Canadian women’s rugby team blasted off with a 64-26 road victory over Scotland to commence its 2026 WXV1 global series campaign.
Claire Gallagher kicked seven converts for Canada, while fellow University of Ottawa Gee-Gees product Sophie McDonald made her international debut and Gatineau’s Pamphinette Buisa of the Ottawa Irish was also part of Team Canada.
The Canadians finished as runners-up to England at last year’s Rugby World Cup. The two finalists will face off again in Ottawa on Oct. 23.
A week after making his debut for Canada during an exhibition match in Japan, Ottawa Irish/University of Ottawa product Jamie Armstrong earned his second cap for the Canadian men in a 45-29 defeat to Fiji in the semi-final match of the Pacific Nations Cup.
2 OTTAWA PLAYERS ADVANCE TO FIFA U-20 WOMEN’S WORLD CUP KNOCKOUT STAGE
Ottawa’s Annabelle Chukwu and Teegan Melenhorst have helped Canada reach the knockout stage at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Poland.
Canada rebounded from a 3-0 opening game loss to Brazil by tying England 1-0 and trouncing Tanzania 6-0.
Ottawa South United product Chukwu, who is Canada’s all-time leading youth scorer, had her team’s goal in the match with England and added two against Tanzania. Midfielder Melenhorst, an Atlético Ottawa Juniors product, played a half in each of the two matches where the Canadians earned points.
With four points, Canada advanced as one of the four best third-place teams among the six groups and will now face France in the round of 16 on Thursday.
WEST OTTAWA WARRIORS MEN JOIN WOMEN AS QUEBEC LS PRO CHAMPS
The West Ottawa Warriors men’s soccer team earned promotion to the Quebec LS Pro second division for next season with a 2-1 victory over the Granby Cosmos in the Ligue 3 playoff final in Laval.
The Warriors men now join their female counterparts in Ligue 2 after the West Ottawa women cruised to a third division title by seven points with a 14-1-1 season.
Both Warriors teams were the class of the Division 3 league as they debuted in the bottom rung of the Quebec semi-pro loop.
The Ottawa South United Force men finished third in the LS Pro Ligue 1 standings this season, earning 11 wins, nine losses and two draws. Abdulazeez Hammood Lazam led the league in scoring with 17 goals.
BRITANNIA SAILOR WINS BRONZE AT YOUTH NATIONALS
Eva Doucette of the Britannia Yacht Club won a bronze medal at the Sail Canada Youth Championships in Victoria, B.C.
Doucette finished second in a pair of women’s ILCA 6 races and earned a net score of 92, which was 22 points off first place and 49 points clear of fourth.
BYC’s Brodie Sorensen won two men’s ILCA 6 races and finished fourth overall, four points back of a podium spot.
CANADIAN WOMEN PERFECT AT OTTAWA-HOSTED WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL WORLDS
The Canadian women earned a perfect 4-0 preliminary round record and a piece of vengeance at the Ottawa 2026 IWBF Wheelchair Basketball World Championships.
A highlight of the tournament to date came when Kady Dandeneau let out a giant yell as she recorded the bucket and the foul that put the game out of reach in the final moments of Canada’s 66-62 triumph over China on Saturday at TD Place.
Dandeneau led the match with 37 points, while Arinn Young recorded a triple-double (19 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists) thanks to her feed to Dandeneau with 17 seconds left.
China’s 40-34 third-quarter lead was the largest of the game for either team in the tightly-contested match between the two countries that met for the bronze medal at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games (which China won).
Canada extended its perfect record to date with an 80-37 victory over Brazil on Sunday following earlier 76-51 and 79-30 wins over Spain and Australia respectively. They’ll face Great Britain in their final group stage match on Tuesday at Carleton University.
The Canadian men advanced through the group stage with a 74-51 opening-night victory over Morocco followed by an 89-73 defeat to Germany. They’ll face Poland in their first knockout match Monday at TD Place.
There are no athletes from Ottawa on either the Canadian men’s or women’s teams. Ottawa’s Emma Shimizu is the women’s team’s high performance coordinator.
END NOTES
• Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and partner Luisa Stefani won four matches in straight sets to reach the women’s doubles semi-finals at the U.S. Open. Dabrowski and Stefani won and lost a set 6-4 in their semi against Ashlyn Krueger and Robin Montgomery and held an 8-2 lead in the final set tiebreaker before the Americans rallied to win 10-8.
• Ottawa’s Jamie Charlebois and Myla Carleton both finished fourth in their respective men’s and women’s junior races at the Triathlon Ontario Provincial Championships in Welland.
• NextGen Team Canada member Chase Jerome of the Royal Ottawa Golf Club shot a one-under 70 in the first round of the Men’s Canadian Collegiate Invitational at Öviinbyrd Golf Club in Foots Bay, Ont. to sit one shot back of the co-leaders.