Canadian women add to medal haul with bronze in 4×200 freestyle relay

RIO DI JANIERO, Brazil — Canadian women continued to add to the country’s medal haul on Wednesday night at the Rio Summer Games.

The women’s 4×200-metre relay team, comprised of rising star Penny Oleksiak of Toronto, Katerine Savard of Pont-Rouge, Que., B.C.-born Taylor Ruck, and Toronto’s Brittany MacLean took bronze to give Canada its sixth medal of the Games.

The foursome finished the race in seven minutes 45.39 seconds, behind gold-winning United States, and silver-winning Australia. 

“We knew if we put ourselves in a position before Penny dove in that anything was going to possible,” MacLean said. “She’s been closing so incredibly.”

It’s Canada’s fourth medal in swimming, and the third for the 16-year-old Oleksiak at these Games. All six of Canada’s medals — one silver, five bronze — have come from female athletes or teams.

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Oleksiak had a busy night, also qualifying for the women’s 100 freestyle final with a Canadian record and world junior record time of 52.72 seconds, 0.01 seconds off first place Cate Campbell of Australia, who set an Olympic record. The final goes Thursday night. 

“I’m pumped up and ready for tomorrow,” Oleksiak said of going for her fourth medal. “If I can recover properly and everything by tomorrow I think I’ll be good.”

Canada’s Santo Condorelli wasn’t so lucky. The Kenora, Ont., product narrowly missed the podium in the men’s 100 freestyle. Condorelli touched the wall in a personal best 47.88, 0.03 seconds off the third-place finish.

The medal win turned around a blustery day in Rio, where Mother Nature proved to be Canada’s toughest opponent.

Weather again plagued the rowing regatta, forcing a postponement of the entire day of racing. It marked the second time this week that officials had to call off competition because of high winds and choppy water.

Canada’s men’s four and the women’s eight were among the Canadian boats slated to race along with the team’s best medal hopefuls, Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee, who were to row in the women’s double sculls semifinal.

On Monday, organizers jammed some 30 heats and repechages into the schedule following the decision to postpone Sunday’s races because of blustery conditions. That delay came after Saturday’s opening heats were marred by high winds that contributed to two Serbian rowers capsizing into the polluted water at Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon.

But the rowers weren’t the only athletes affected by weather as rain and wind resulted in the postponement of tennis. That means Toronto’s Daniel Nestor and Vancouver’s Vasek Pospisil will have to wait to play their men’s doubles semifinal versus Spain’s Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez.

Nestor — who won Olympic doubles gold in 2000 with Sebastian Lareau — and Pospisil are the No. 7 seeds. Nadal and Lopez are seeded sixth.

The Canadian women’s basketball team improved to 3-0 with a 68-58 win over Senegal.

Toronto’s Crispin Duenas, competing in his third Olympics, advanced to the second round of men’s archery with a 6-5 win over Italian Marco Galiazzo, the ’04 Olympic champion, in a shootoff.

After the matched finished tied 5-5 in regulation, Duenas scored 10 points with his first attempt in the shootoff while Galiazzo — who helped Italy win the team gold four years ago in London and silver in 2008 — could only register nine points on his. But Duenas dropped his second-round match 7-3 to American Zach Garrett.

Montreal’s Georcy-Stephanie Thiffeault Picard didn’t advance past the first round of the women’s event.

Hamilton’s Eleanor Harvey upset world No. 1 Arianna Errigo of Italy en route to the women’s foil quarter-finals in fencing. Harvey lost 15-13 in the quarter-finals to a Tunisian but her seventh-place finish is Canada’s best individual result at an Olympic Games.

Kelita Zupancic was eliminated from the women’s 70-kilogram judo event. The 26-year-old from Whitby, Ont., lost a heart-breaking repechage match to Austrian Bernadette Graf.

Zupancic, a three-time Pan Am judo gold medallist, had Graf on the mat late in the contest to secure a point, but couldn’t hold her there long enough to earn the maximum 10 points that would’ve tied the score.

Calgary’s Tara Whitten, a three-time world champion, was seventh in the women’s cycling time trial with a time of 45 minutes 1.16 seconds. Karol-Ann Canuel of Gatineau, Que., placed 13th in 46:30.93.

Hugo Houle of Sainte-Perpetue, Que., was 21st in the men’s time trial with a time of 1:17:02.04.

Canada’s Josh Binstock and Samuel Schachter fell 2-1 (21-19, 16-21, 15-8) to Austria in men’s beach volleyball preliminary round play Wednesday night. The Canadian duo are last in the Pool A standings with three points.

The Canadian Press