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Olympic stock watch: Canada’s freestyle ski and snowboard medal hopes are up (if everyone keeps testing negative)
It’s a new year, and it’s an Olympic year. The opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing is just over a month away, on Feb. 4. Competition begins two days earlier, when mixed doubles curling gets going.
Canada’s entry for that event was supposed to be decided yesterday, but the national mixed doubles trials in Portage la Prairie, Man., were cancelled last week over COVID-19 concerns. Officials are still in the process of deciding who to send. Assuming Canada sticks to its policy of not allowing anyone to compete in both the mixed doubles and conventional curling tournaments, the top options would appear to be Rachel Homan and 2018 Olympic mixed doubles champion John Morris, or Kerri Einarson and Brad Jacobs. Those were the marquee duos among the 16 slated to compete at the ill-fated trials.
The weekend was far from a wash, though. Several Canadian athletes reached the podium in events both at home and abroad to bolster their status as Olympic medal contenders. Here’s our weekly look at whose stock is pointing up or down based on the latest results:
Up: Brendan Mackay
The 24-year-old established himself as a serious contender in the men’s ski halfpipe by winning back-to-back World Cup events in his hometown of Calgary on Thursday and Saturday. Mackay, who’s eyeing his first Olympics and has never finished better than seventh at the world championships, is now the co-leader in the men’s World Cup standings. He’s tied in points with American Alex Ferreira, who was the runner-up in both competitions in Calgary and won the season opener in Colorado, where Mackay placed third.
Two other Canadians joined Mackay on the men’s ski halfpipe podium in Calgary. Simon d’Artois took bronze in Thursday’s event, and Noah Bowman did the same on Saturday. D’Artois was the silver medallist at last year’s world championships. Bowman placed fifth at each of the last two Winter Olympics and was the World Cup runner-up for the 2019-20 season. So Canada has a chance to put multiple men on the podium in Beijing.
Up: Rachael Karker
How’s this for consistency: Karker has reached the podium in eight consecutive World Cup starts (dating back to December 2019) after taking bronze in Thursday’s women’s ski halfpipe event in Calgary and silver on Saturday. The 24-year-old from Erin, Ont., also grabbed silver at last year’s world championships. Karker ranks second in the women’s World Cup standings — behind China’s Eileen Gu, who has won all three events this season.
Gu could be tough to beat in Beijing, but Canada has a shot to put two women on the podium with Karker and reigning Olympic champ Cassie Sharpe. The 29-year-old Calgarian returned to competition in December, less than a year after tearing two knee ligaments and fracturing her femur in a crash at the Winter X Games. She’s still a work in progress, but Sharpe’s seventh- and fourth-place finishes in Calgary are encouraging signs.
Up: Sébastien Toutant
The reigning Olympic men’s snowboard big air champion might be a two-medal threat in Beijing. He won gold in the World Cup slopestyle event Saturday in Calgary, and was the silver medallist at last year’s world championships.
Speaking of Canadian snowboarders with the skills to reach multiple podiums in Beijing, Laurie Blouin took bronze in the women’s slopestyle competition in Calgary. She captured silver in this event at the 2018 Olympics and owns two world titles — one in slopestyle (2017), the other in big air (2021).
Two more World Cup snowboard slopestyle events are on tap before the Olympics, plus the Winter X Games in Aspen later this month. 2018 Olympic medallists Max Parrot and Mark McMorris are among the other Canadians gunning for medals in slopestyle and big air. McMorris placed fourth on Saturday, while Parrot didn’t compete. Read about how McMorris is “laying incredibly low” between events in an effort to avoid contracting COVID before the Olympics here.
Up: Christine de Bruin
The Canadian bobsleigh pilot had another big weekend, winning her second consecutive women’s monobob gold before capturing bronze the next day in the two-woman event with brakewoman Kristen Bujnowski.
De Bruin is now ranked No. 1 in the monobob, which is making its Olympic debut in Beijing. In second place is fellow Canadian Cynthia Appiah. She did not race over the weekend in Latvia, where 14 athletes and staff members from the Canadian bobsleigh team tested positive for COVID-19.
De Bruin and Bujnowski are ranked second in the two-woman discipline. They began the season with three consecutive bronze medals, then missed the podium twice before bouncing back with their bronze on Sunday.
On the men’s side, Canadian pilot Justin Kripps left Latvia empty-handed. The 2018 Olympic two-man gold medallist finished fourth on Saturday and eighth on Sunday. He’s third in the World Cup two-man standings and second in the four-man event, which wasn’t contested at this stop.
Down: The chances of a nice, smooth Olympics
The COVID-19 outbreak on the Canadian bobsleigh team was a chilling example of something that could happen in Beijing. While it appears no one came down with serious symptoms, the athletes who tested positive were unable to compete. Same for American alpine skiing superstar Mikaela Shiffrin, who missed two World Cup races last week after testing positive (she’s expected to return for tomorrow’s slalom event in Croatia). And we all saw how quickly the world junior hockey championship in Alberta fell apart last week. If enough top contenders were to get scratched from their events during the Olympics, it could threaten the integrity of the Games.
Canadian Olympic Committee CEO David Shoemaker told CBC Sports’ Scott Russell on Friday that his organization is “confident that these Games can still be scheduled safely.” Shoemaker also said the Olympic “bubble” in Beijing might be the safest place to be during the seemingly unstoppable spread of the Omicron variant. The COC’s greater concern at the moment, he said, is ensuring Canadian athletes don’t get infected over the next few weeks, which would require them to clear additional hurdles to be allowed to compete in Beijing. Read more about Shoemaker’s comments and how the Canadian team is trying to navigate the Omicron wave here.
L’Assomption, Que.’s Sébastien Toutant outperformed the field, placing 1st in the men’s snowboard slopestyle event during the FIS Snowboard World Cup in Calgary. 2:39
Quickly…
Leylah Fernandez got her year off to a good start. The rising Canadian tennis star is in Australia warming up for her first Grand Slam tournament since her stunning run to the U.S. Open final in September. Today, she kicked off her 2022 season by defeating Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 6-4 in the first round of the Adelaide International. Fernandez, 19, was named the Canadian Press female athlete of the year for 2021 after capturing her first WTA title in Mexico and then nearly taking the U.S. Open crown as an unseeded player. She’s now ranked 24th in the world. The Australian Open starts Jan. 17 in Melbourne.
Another NHL game was postponed. Thursday’s game between Ottawa and Seattle is off because of “COVID-related issues,” the league announced today. The Senators have nine players in protocol as they deal with their second significant outbreak of the season. Elsewhere, Toronto star Auston Matthews was held out of practice today after testing positive. Keep up with the latest news in CBC Sports’ daily COVID-19 roundup.
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