Day 2: What Team Canada did at Paris 2024

Day 2 at Paris 2024 is in the books! 

Here’s everything you need to know about how Team Canada athletes performed.

Paris 2024 Competition Schedule

Fencing

Eleanor Harvey won Canada’s first ever Olympic medal in fencing. She took the bronze medal in the women’s individual foil event, defeating Italy’s Alice Volpi 15-12 in the third-place match. 

READ: Eleanor Harvey wins historic bronze medal for Canada in women’s foil fencing 

Just by reaching the semifinals, Harvey had achieved Canada’s best ever Olympic result in any individual fencing event.  

Jessica Guo and Yunjia Zhang both made it as far as the Table of 16 in the women’s individual foil. After winning her Table of 32 match 15-7, Guo was defeated 15-11 by American Lauren Scruggs. Zhang had also won her opening bout 15-7 before being defeated 15-5 by Hungary’s Flora Pasztor. 

Nicholas Zhang was Canada’s lone entry in men’s individual epee. The youngest male athlete on Team Canada at Paris 2024 was eliminated in the Table of 64 by Venezuela’s Grabiel Lugo, 15-11.

Swimming

It was a fifth place finish for Maggie Mac Neil in the women’s 100m butterfly. The Tokyo 2020 Olympic medallist finished with a time of 56.44.

Mary-Sophie Harvey competed in the women’s 200m freestyle semifinals, swimming a time of 1:56.37 to snag the final qualification spot for the final on Day 3.

READ: Harvey advances to women’s 200m freestyle final on Day 2 of swimming at Paris 2024

Artistic Gymnastics

Team Canada’s women’s artistic gymnastics team of Ellie Black, Shallon Olsen, Cassie Lee, Ava Stewart and Aurélie Tran qualified Canada for the women’s Olympic team final for the first time since London 2012.

Black and Stewart have qualified for the all-around final. Olsen and Black qualified for the vault final. 

Paris 2024 marks the first time in 20 years that Team Canada is represented by full teams in both men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics at the Olympic Games, and now, in a historic success, both have qualified for the team finals.

Cycling – Mountain Bike 

In her Olympic debut. 19-year-old Isabella Holmgren finished 17th in the women’s cross-country race. She completed the 30.8km race in 1:33:43. Her brother Gunnar will compete in the men’s cross-country race on Day 3.

READ: Holmgren siblings revel in sharing first Olympic Games experience

Surfing

Over in Tahiti, Sanoa Dempfle-Olin finished third in her first round heat in the women’s surfing. This means she moves to round two, rather than directly to round three of the competition.

Paris 2024 Olympic Games Information Hub

Sailing

Georgia and Antonia Lewin-LaFrance are in sixth place after the first three races in the women’s 49er FX. They placed first in the opening race, 19th in the second race, and 12th in the third race that all took place on Sunday. The lowest placement by each crew is dropped when calculating their overall score. The Lewin-LaFrance sisters are currently counting 13 points, six more than the current third place crew.

Rowing

Jill Moffatt and Jenny Casson were the first Canadian rowers to get on the water at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium. They finished third in their heat of the women’s lightweight double sculls, which means they will have to race in a repechage on Monday to advance to the semifinals. 

“We are not satisfied with our race today but tomorrow’s repechage is a good opportunity to nail things down before the semifinals,” said Moffatt. “It’s the Olympic Games and we don’t treat this like it’s just another race. We have a lot of confidence overall with all the work we’ve done at our training camps in the lead up to Paris.”

Canoe/Kayak Slalom

Lois Betteridge competed in the semifinals of the women’s K-1 event, placing 20th overall in her first event of her Olympic debut. She still has the women’s C-1 and kayak cross to come later in the Games.

Badminton 

Adam Dong and Nyl Yakura played their second match of men’s doubles group stage action. They dropped a 2-0 decision (21-10, 21-15) to Malaysia’s Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik, ranked fourth in the world. The Canadians have one more group stage match to play on Monday. 

Equestrian

The second day of eventing featured the cross-country test. Canada sits 11th overall in the team standings. Karl Slezak and Hot Bobo are the top-ranked Canadians individually, currently in 27th place. Michael Winter and El Mundo sit 38th while Jessica Phoenix and Freedom GS are 49th.  

The eventing competition will conclude on Day 3 with the jumping tests that will determine the final results for the individual and team events.

Rugby

The Canadian rugby sevens women’s squad kicked off their Olympic campaign with a win against Fiji and loss to New Zealand on Sunday.

In a battle between two closely ranked teams, Canada held Fiji to seven points for the majority of the game. A successful Keyara Wardley try in the second half proved to be the difference for the Canadians.

They were outplayed by World No. 1 New Zealand in the evening match, losing 33-7.

Today’s result will set up a win-and-in scenario with China tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. local/10:00 a.m. ET. Canada will qualify for the knockout stage if they beat China, but will still have a chance to get in based on point differential in the event of a loss and other results.

Table Tennis

Mo Zhang was victorious over Paulina Vega of Chile in the women’s singles round of 64. Eugene Wang was defeated by Japan’s Shunsuke Togami 4-0 in the men’s singles round of 64. Edward Ly fell to Panagiotis Gionis of Greece, also in the men’s singles round of 64.

Beach Volleyball

In their first Olympic match together, Sam Schachter and Daniel Dearing lost 2-0 (21-17, 21-19) to Czechia’s Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner.

Volleyball

Canada’s men’s volleyball squad dropped their opening Olympic matchup against Slovenia in four sets, 25-21, 25-20, 20-25, 25-21.

In a back-and-forth match, No. 5 Slovenia’s serving, attacking, and defence at the net gave them the edge. In the fourth set, on game point, a left side block on Canada’s Arthur Szwarc sealed the victory for Slovenia.

Canada will be back in action on Tuesday. They will take on the host nation, No. 4 France, at 3:00 p.m EST / 9:00 p.m. local.

Judo 

Kelly Deguchi was the first Canadian judoka to see action at Paris 2024. She was eliminated from the women’s 52kg event in the round of 32 when Japan’s Uta Abe scored ippon just 57 seconds into the match.

Tennis 

Félix Auger-Aliassime started things off for Team Canada with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Marcos Giron of the United States, moving on to the second round. At the same time, Bianca Andreescu was victorious over Denmark’s Clara Tauson, 6-2. 6-3. Leylah Annie Fernandez took on Czechia’s Karolina Muchova, winning 6-1, 4-6, 6-2.

Milos Raonic was defeated in three tight sets, 7-6(2), 6-7(5), and 6-7(1), by Germany’s Dominik Koepfer.

Shooting

Tye Ikeda competed in the qualification round of the men’s 10m air rifle. He finished 48th and did not advance to the eight-man final.

Soccer

The Canadian women’s team pulled off some incredible last-minute heroics in what had become a must-win game against France. Vanessa Gilles scored in the 12th minute of stoppage time to give Canada a 2-1 win. The host side had taken a 1-0 lead late in the first half, before captain Jessie Fleming scored in the 58th minute to level it up.

Canada, facing a six-point deduction in the aftermath of the drone-flying controversy, needed a win to keep alive their hopes of reaching the quarterfinals. The team will also need a win in their final match of the group stage, against Colombia on Wednesday.