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Canada’s defending-champion women’s eight rowing team has won a silver medal at the Paris Olympics.
Led by coxswain Kristen Kit and three other returnees from the Tokyo 2021 championship crew, the Canadians covered 2,000 metres in five minutes 58.84 seconds for a silver medal at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in France.
“So much gratitude for these women. They [answered] every single call I asked them to do,” Kit told CBC Sports. “They dug way deeper than I’ve ever seen anyone dig. You can’t count out [Canadian women] until [the race] is done.”
Added Avalon Wasteneys, a member of the 2021 Olympic squad: “Right from the beginning, I think we all trusted each other, we believed in each other and we knew it was going to be a great, tough race.
Canada’s women’s eight rowing crew finishes second at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 to fall short in its bid for back-to-back Olympic gold. Romania wins the final with a time of 5:54:39.
“Off the start we went as hard as we could. We added some extra pushes. There were [times] when I had doubt but I just kept backing myself by believing in the girls around me because I knew we had such a strong crew. Kit was pushing us, pushing us, pushing us and we hung on and gave our best effort.”
Romania won gold in 5:54.39, with Great Britain (5:59..51) taking bronze.
“Our [coxswain] Victoria Stefania Petreanu told us in the last 500 metres the gold was ours, but I didn’t believe it,” said Romanian rower Maria Lehaci. “I knew that we had to go for the finish line and here we are. We are Olympic champions.”
Medal presentation for Canada’s women’s eight rowing crew after finishing second in the final at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Canada’s victory in 2021 ended a medal drought in the event dating to the London Games in 2012, and it’s the ninth straight Olympics Canada has won a medal in rowing dating back to 1992.
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Canadian women’s 8 rowing team clinches spot at Paris Olympics
The Canadian women’s 8 crew clinched a berth for Paris last September with a fifth-place result (6:07.15) at the world championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
Canada found itself in a tight battle with Great Britain for second with 500 metres to go, but were able to hold off their rivals to claim silver.
The team returned four members from the Tokyo Games: Calgary’s Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski, Toronto’s Sydney Payne and Avalon Wasteneys of Campbell River, B.C., along with Kit of St. Catharines, Ont.
Abby Dent of Kenora, Ont., Victoria’s Caileigh Filmer, Maya Meschkuleit of Mississauga, Ont., Jessica Sevick of Strathmore, Alta., and Kristina Walker of Wolfe Island, Ont. are the other team members.
Canada qualified for Saturday’s final after finishing second (6:04.81) in Thursday’s repechage.
Source: cbc
