CANADA BASKS IN BRONZE AGE
Three-medal day lifts nation’s hopes
Canada’s pre-Games goal of a top-12 finish here was mocked by some experts as being a tad optimistic.
Is it time to adjust those goals — upward? That was the sense in some giddy quarters of the Olympic Village on Tuesday after a three-medal day. That’s four bronze medals in four competition days. Canada: red and white and bronze all over.
On Tuesday, within a span of one hour and 15 minutes (or a fraction of a Raonic-Tsonga tennis match): Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion won bronze in synchronized 10-metre diving; Antoine Valois-Fortier was third in judo’s 81-kg class and Christine Girard was a bronze medallist in weightlifting’s 63-kg category.
Canada could get used to such early success. Typically, a slow start at the Games spawns an outbreak of woe-Canada commentary, in print and on broadcasts at home.
In Beijing, where Canadians would go on to win 18 medals, they didn’t earn their first medal until Day 8, when wrestler Carol Huynh won a gold and the men’s rowing pair won silver — inspiring further greatness.
In London, too, the best may be yet to come.
Wednesday alone fuels more medal hopes: Grand dame Clara Hughes is looking to make Canadian Olympic history while riding in the road cycling time trial, the men’s rowing eights are in the final, Alex Despatie and Reuben Ross compete in the men’s three-metre synchro diving, and Brent Hayden is swimming in the men’s 100-metre freestyle final.
At a news conference Tuesday night, the new medal winners all agreed it was a spectacular day.
“For us to win three medals in one day is extraordinary,” said Filion.
“We all want our country to be into sport,” said Girard, “so having this many medals is great. I remember in Beijing we didn’t have any medals and this time, by Day 4, we have four medals. It’s good motivation for everybody in Canada, we should be proud.”
Achingly close to a medal in China four years ago, Girard becomes the first female weightlifter from Canada to be on an Olympic podium, the first weightlifting medal for any Canadian in 28 years.
“I grew up thinking it wasn’t possible for a Canadian to have a medal, so for me, this medal really means a lot, because I really followed my heart and my head. I truly believed in my heart I could do it.”
Incredibly, after missing her last lift, Girard thought she was fourth yet again.
“I was pretty destroyed,” she said. “Then when I looked at Walter Bailey, my husband, he says, ‘You’re third! You’re third!’ (she holds up three fingers) I couldn’t believe it. I thought, Oh my God, I did it. I did it.”
Fortier’s victory was especially stunning. Ranked 27th in the world, he upset Olympic champion and No. 3 ranked Elnur Mammadli of Azerbaijan in his first match of the day. Key, said Fortier, knew Mammadli had “cut a lot of weight” to reach this weight class.
“I knew I had to keep my pace up,” Fortier said. “I was dynamic throughout the match, and his energy level was going down.”
The Filion and Benfeito medal came just two days after Canada’s first medal in London: the bronze in threemetre synchro diving by Emilie Heymans and Jennifer Abel.
It is said of Filion and Benfeito that they laugh, smile, even go to bed at the same time.
“Oh, no,” Filion protests, “I go to bed much earlier.”
“Laughing together, ” Benfeito said, “is what we do best.”
Each of the medal winners has Quebec roots, although Girard recently moved to White Rock, B.C. How to explain this fabulous run in Quebec?
Quebec coaching, support staff and facilities — including Olympic legacy venues — are second to none, the Quebecers say.
Athletes from short track inspire and train with athletes of other disciplines. Their heroes, especially in diving, showed the path. Olympic champion Annie Pelletier, Roseline’s idol, came to the pool to dive with the duo just a week before the Games.
“She’s the reason I became a diver,” Filion said. “Sixteen years later, I got a medal.”
There’s been a lot of that going around.