PARIS — Fencer Eleanor Harvey added to Canada’s medal haul while the tested Canadian women’s soccer team staged an epic comeback on Sunday at the Paris Olympics.
Harvey defeated Italy’s Alice Volpi 15-12 to capture bronze in the women’s individual foil, earning Canada’s first Olympic fencing medal.
Swimmer Summer McIntosh won Canada’s first medal of the Games with a silver in the women’s 400-metre freestyle on Saturday.
“I feel like I’m in a dream,” Harvey said. “For some reason, today I fenced well. I train just as hard, whether it’s the Olympics or not. For some reason, it was really good today.”
Harvey advanced to the semifinals in a dramatic match that saw opponent Italian Martina Favaretto fall to her knees after the final blow, narrowly winning 15-14 after trailing 10-4 midway through the second frame.
The 12th-seeded Harvey then fell 15-9 to American Lauren Scruggs in the semis before toppling No. 3-seed Volpi. Harvey jumped to a 9-4 lead, but Volpi came back to tie the score at 10-10 before the Canadian ultimately won out.
The left-handed fencer was a silver medallist in both the individual and team foil events in her third Pan Am Games last year in Santiago, Chile.
Elsewhere, Canada’s women’s soccer team kept its tournament hopes alive with a dramatic 2-1 win over France.
Vanessa Gilles scored in the 12th minute of injury time to help Canada complete the comeback in the must-win game.
“Sometimes the stars align even when everything is going against you,” said Gilles. “It’s just a lot of pride. I’ve never felt so many emotions in a game, even in the Olympic final.”
FIFA docked six points from the women’s team after a staffer was caught using a drone to spy on New Zealand team practices before the start of competition.
The Canadian Olympic Committee has said it is considering an appeal, but as it currently stands the maximum point total for Canada in the group stage would be three points, provided the reigning champions beat Colombia on Wednesday in Nice.
Before the match, head coach Bev Priestman offered her first public comments since being sent home from Paris and suspended by FIFA for a year, releasing a statement issued by her lawyers.
“I am absolutely heartbroken for the players, and I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the impact this situation has had on all of them,” Priestman said.
“I know how hard they have worked following a very difficult year in 2023, and that they are a group of people who care very much about sportsmanship and integrity. As the leader of the team on the field, I want to take accountability, and I plan to fully co-operate with the investigation.”
The federal government also announced it is withholding some funding from Canada Soccer after three officials were suspended and the organization was fined more than $300,000.
Sport Minister Carla Qualtrough, as well as fans in Paris, are calling the scandal an embarrassment to the athletes.
Also Sunday, swimmer Maggie Mac Neil fell short of defending her gold medal and most Canadians found success on the tennis courts at Roland Garros.
Mac Neil finished fifth in the 100-metre butterfly as Americans Torri Huske and Gretchen Walsh won gold and silver ahead of bronze medallist Zhang Yufei of China.
The 24-year-old from London, Ont., was attempting to become the first woman to win back-to-back gold in the event.
After most of Saturday’s tennis matches were rescheduled by a day due to the rain, Canada’s players were off to a sunny start on Sunday.
Felix Auger-Aliassime and Bianca Andreescu scored a pair of straight-set victories while Leylah Fernandez won in three.
Veteran Milos Raonic was the only Canadian to lose in first-round singles action.
The 23-year-old Auger-Aliassime of Montreal defeated American player Marcos Giron 6-1, 6-4 in men’s singles. Raonic, of Thornhill, Ont., fell to Dominik Koepfer of Germany 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (1) in two hours 23 minutes.
In the first round of women’s singles, 24-year-old Andreescu defeated Denmark’s Clara Tauson 6-2, 6-3 and Fernandez, of Laval, Que., outlasted Karolina Muchova of Czechia 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 in a match that lasted two hours 21 minutes.
Andreescu, from Mississauga, Ont., is competing in her first Olympics after injuries forced her to withdraw from the Tokyo Games, while Auger-Aliassime and Fernandez made their Olympic debuts in Tokyo. Raonic represented Canada at London 2012.
In gymnastics, Canada advanced to the team final in women’s artistic gymnastics by finishing fifth in qualifying.
Olympic veteran Ellie Black, from Halifax, led the Canadian team with an eighth-place finish in the all-around standings. She scored a combined 54.766 points on vault, uneven bars, balance beam and the floor exercise to qualify for the all-around final.
The 28-year-old Black, competing in her fourth Olympics, also qualified for the vault final with a seventh-place finish.
Canada’s men’s team advanced to its final by finishing eighth in qualifying on Saturday. This is only the second time both Canadian gymnastics teams have reached the finals, the first being at the boycotted 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Canada opened its Olympic women’s rugby sevens campaign with mixed results, taking a win and a loss. Keyara Wardles scored the decisive try in Canada’s first game, a 17-14 win over Fiji, before losing a 33-7 rout to top-ranked New Zealand.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 28, 2024.
