5 Team Canada sports to watch this weekend: February 23-25
There’s lots on the go for Team Canada athletes this weekend, including opportunities to get closer to Paris 2024 qualification for surfers and trampolinists.
Team Canada’s bobsleigh and skeleton athletes will chase the podium at the 2024 IBSF World Championships in Germany, while Canadian rugby players will put on a show for the home crowd at the SVNS Series stop in Vancouver, and ski cross athletes look to continue their success at a World Cup in Austria.
Here’s what you don’t want to miss this weekend:
Rugby
There is a Canadian stop on the SVNS Series taking place in Vancouver this weekend. This is the second year in a row that the event will feature concurrent men’s and women’s tournaments, which means that 24 teams (12 men, 12 women) from all over the world will play a total of 64 matches over three days.
Team Canada’s women will play in a pool with Great Britain, France, and Spain, while the men will play in a pool with Argentina, Fiji, and Spain. Both Canadian teams have their first matches on Friday afternoon, with the women playing France and the men playing Argentina. The group stage continues into Saturday, which will also see the start of the knockout rounds. The tournaments will finish on Sunday
The Canadian teams last competed at the SVNS Series stop in Perth, Australia in late January, where the women finished seventh and the men finished twelfth.
The Canadian women qualified for Paris 2024 in August at the Rugby Americas North Sevens in Langford, BC, after a brilliant 53-0 win over Team Mexico to win the tournament. The men’s team will play in a final Olympic qualifier in Monaco in June.
Bobsleigh and Skeleton
Team Canada athletes are taking on the 2024 IBSF World Championships, taking place in Winterberg, Germany. A few events will take place this weekend before the competition concludes next weekend.
After the first two runs of women’s skeleton on Thursday, 19-year-old Hallie Clarke was holding onto the lead. She won the U20 Junior World title on this same track last year. The final two runs will be held on Friday.
Two-time Olympian Jane Channell is in seventh place midway through the event. She is coming off a strong performance last weekend in Altenberg, where she and Blake Enzie placed fifth, a mere 0.03 of a second off the podium, in the mixed team event. This event will be new to the Olympic programme for Milano Cortina 2026. The world championship race will take place on Saturday.
Mirela Rahneva is sitting in ninth place at the halfway point of women’s skeleton. The two-time Olympian snagged a victory at the World Cup in Sigulda earlier this month. Last weekend finished a mere 0.01 off the podium at the World Cup in Altenberg, Germany.
On the bobsleigh side, this weekend features women’s monobob and the two-man event. Cynthia Appiah took fifth place last weekend in the monobob.
Surfing
The ISA World Surfing Games are taking place February 23-March 3 in La Marginal – Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
Canada will be represented by six surfers, including Olympic-bound Sanoa Dempfle-Olin, who provisionally qualified for Paris 2024 at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games by taking home the silver medal. Competing at the World Surfing Games fulfills the last criteria to confirm her qualification.
Her older sister, Mathea Dempfle-Olin, who won a bronze medal for Team Canada at Lima 2019 in the longboard event, will also represent Team Canada. So will Cody Young, who came just one win shy of advancing to the medal round at Santiago 2023.
Another athlete to look out for is 16-year-old Erin Brooks. Last June, Brooks won shortboard silver at the 2023 World Surfing Games in El Sunzal, El Salvador. She was unable to compete at the Pan Am Games because she didn’t yet hold a Canadian passport. Brooks was granted her Canadian citizenship in January and will be looking to snag one of the last tickets to Paris.
The ISA World Surfing Games will serve as the final opportunity for surfers to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. There are eight spots available for women, and six for men.
Ski Cross
There’s a FIS Ski Cross World Cup stop in Reiteralm, Austria this weekend and the Canadian team will be looking to make its presence felt on the podiums.
Marielle Thompson, winner of the last three women’s races, will be looking to build on her success. She is currently first in the overall World Cup standings with four victories and two runner-up finishes.
Hannah Schmidt is third overall, having won three times and finishing third twice in 2023-24. Brittany Phelan is fourth in the season rankings thanks to has four podium finishes.
Reece Howden is currently second in the overall men’s rankings, having won twice to go with one runner-up result. Jared Schmidt, who won three times so far during the campaign, is in fifth place.
Both the men and women will race on Saturday, followed by an identical program on Sunday.
Trampoline
Six Canadian trampolinists will be taking part in the FIG Trampoline World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan, this weekend. This is the penultimate opportunity to earn points towards the Olympic qualification ranking, which will close following the World Cup in Cottbus, Germany towards the end of March.
Rachel Tam, Gabriella Flynn, Sophiane Méthot and Sarah Milette will take part in the women’s individual event, while Keegan Soehn and Rémi Aubin will be in action in the men’s individual event.
In the women’s synchronized event, which is not on the Olympic program, Tam will team up with Flynn and Méthot with Milette. Soehn and Aubin will compete together in men’s synchro.
The qualifying rounds will take place on Friday and Saturday, while the finals of the individual and synchro events will be held on Sunday.
To date, Canada has obtained one Olympic quota spot for the women’s individual event thanks to Méthot’s fifth-place finish at the 2023 World Championships. With five spots per gender allocated at the worlds, there are 11 more spots in each event still available, most of which should be determined via the Olympic qualification ranking which counts an athlete’s two best results at five World Cups between February 2023 and March 2024.
Milette is currently ranked 11th, while Tam is 14th in the women’s Olympic qualification ranking. Aubin is 20th in the men’s ranking.