Medal haul grows
Canada adds silver and bronze in rhythmic gymnastics, bronze in fencing, silver in taekwondo
Canada won a silver and bronze medal in rhythmic gymnastics and followed with a silver and bronze in fencing at the Pan Am Games on Monday to bring its overall medal total to 146.
The Canadian Pan Am team had 54 gold medals, 49 silver and 41 bronze as of Monday afternoon.
The United States leads the medal tally with 167, including 64 gold.
Rhythmic gymnast Patricia Bezzoubenko of Thornhill, Ont., won her silver medal in the clubs competition, and Canada later added a bronze in the clubs/hoops group competition.
Bezzoubenko’s score of 15.933 was just behind American Laura Zeng, who led the eight-athlete field at the Toronto Coliseum with 16.167 points. American Jasmine Kerber took bronze with a score of 15.833.
Bezzoubenko, who won five gold medals for Canada at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, just missed the podium in the ribbon com- petition with a fourth-place finish. She won a bronze medal in the all-around competition on Saturday.
“I hope I can learn from these competitions and go forward and do my best,” Bezzoubenko said.
The Canadian clubs/hoop group took bronze in their event with 13.709 points. U.S. took gold (14.983) and Brazil won silver (14.692).
In fencing, Montreal’s Joseph Polossifakis advanced to the final in men’s sabre before falling 15-9 to Eli Dershwitz of the United States.
Gabriella Page of Blainville, Que., added a bronze when she fell 15-13 to Dagmara Wozniak of the U.S. in the women’s sabre.
Later Monday, the Canadian women’s basketball team took on the U.S. for gold.
No Canadian basketball team — men’s or women’s — has never won a Pan Am tournament. The women’s best result was a silver in 1999 in Winnipeg.
Canada’s Maxime Potvin earned a silver medal in the men’s 68-kilogram taekwondo event.
Potvin, 27, of Quebec City, fell 6-3 to Mexico’s Saul Gutierrez in the final at the Mississauga Sports Centre.
Gutierrez outscored Potvin 3-0 in an extra fourth round for the win.
Povtin won all three of his matches en route to the gold medal, first defeating Brazil’s Henrique Precioso 15-5 before earning a 13-11 semifinal win over American Terrence Jennings.
Earlier, Evelyn Gonda of New Westminster, B.C., lost a 10-3 decision to Cuban Yamicel Nunez for bronze in the women’s 57kilogram class.
Gonda, 18, won her first two matches by 12-point margins before dropping a 10-6 semifinal decision to Mexican Paulina Armeria.
The Canadian boxing team also set itself up for potential medals, with Mandy Bujold of Kitchener, Ont., Ariane Fortin of Saint-Nicolas, Que., and Montreal’s Caroline Veyre all winning their quarter-final bouts on Monday.