Canada leaps past 2011 gold medal total
Ellie Black of Canada competes her way to a gold medal in the artistic gymnastic women’s floor final during the 2015 Pan Am Games at the Toronto Coliseum on Wednesday.
Calgary shooter Lynda Kiejko won her second gold of the Pan American Games Wednesday, helping Canada eclipse its goldmedal total of four years ago in just five days.
With eight gold medals on Wednesday, the host nation now has 33 overall.
Canada won 30 gold medals total over 16 days at the 2011 Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Along with Kiejko’s win, Halifax gymnast Ellie Black and Canada’s rowing and swimming teams contributed multiple gold medals Wednesday.
Black won gold in the women’s balance- beam competition and the floor exercise, giving her five medals in five events.
Black nailed her balance- beam routine with a score of 15.050 at the highest difficulty level. After her floor exercise routine that got her a score of 14.400, she blew kisses to the crowd at Ricoh Coliseum as fans roared and waved Canadian flags.
Earlier, the 19- year- old won gold in the all- around, bronze in the vault and helped Canada earn silver in the team event.
“This was more than I expected, this has been incredible,” Black said. “The support here has been amazing. I was so proud of our team coming in silver, and individually in my finals I was not expecting half of this. So thank you to everyone.”
Kevin Lytwyn of Stoney Creek, Ont., won silver in the men’s horizontal bar with a score of 15.475 and Victoria Woo of Brossard, Que., won bronze on the women’s balance beam at 13.650.
Canada earned a medal in four of five races, including three gold, on the final day of rowing competition at the Royal Canadian Henley course in St. Catharines, Ont. The men’s lightweight coxless fours, the men’s eight and the women’s quadruple sculls all topped the podium, while Rob Gibson of Kingston, Ont., added a silver in men’s single sculls.
The men’s eights led from start to finish, finishing three seconds ahead of Argentina with a time of six minutes 7.01 seconds.
The eights crew included all four members of the gold- medalwinning men’s coxless four from earlier in the meet.
“We all agreed there’s no way we could stand on that podium and listen to any other anthem with our fans, family and friends there,” said Conlin McCabe of Brockville, Ont. “The whole regatta was going to be a failure to us if we didn’t win the eights, even though we had won the fours and quad already.”
McCabe, Victoria’s Mike Evans, Will Dean of Kelowna, B. C., Julien Bahain of Sherbrooke, Que., Martin Barakso of Nanaimo, B. C., Tim Schrijver of Thedford, Ont., Kai Langerfeld of Parksville, B. C., Will Crothers of Kingston and coxswain Jacob Koudys from nearby Fenwick, Ont., got the eights win for Canada.
Kate Goodfellow of Perth, Ont., Kerry Shaffer of nearby Welland, Ont., Carling Zeeman of Cambridge, Ont., and Antje Von Seydlitz of Smithers, B. C., won the quad sculls in 7: 07.63, more than eight seconds ahead of the U. S., who won silver in 7: 16.26.
Maxwell Lattimer and Brendan Hodge, both from South Delta, B. C., Nicolas Pratt of Kingston, and Eric Woelfl from St. Catharines, Ont., won the men’s lightweight coxless fours.
In swimming, Kierra Smith and Hilary Caldwell led Canada to two one- two finishes as the national swimming team took seven medals.
Smith, from Kelowna, B. C., won gold in the 200- metre women’s breaststroke in a Pan Am record time of two minutes 24.38 seconds while Toronto’s Martha McCabe finished 0.13 seconds back to take silver.
Caldwell, from White Rock B. C., set a Pan Am record in the 200 backstroke, winning in 2: 08.22. Dominique Bouchard of North Bay, Ont., was second in 2: 09.74.
Emily Overholt of West Vancouver, B. C., won silver in the women’s 200 freestyle, while Edmonton’s Richard Funk added silver in the men’s 200 breaststroke.
The men’s 800- metre freestyle relay team comprised of Victoria’s Jeremy Bagshaw and Ryan Cochrane, Stefan Milosevic of Burnaby, B. C., and Alec Page of Cortes Island, B. C., was upgraded to silver from bronze when the United States was disqualified, but the Americans protested the result.
Canada has 13 medals through two days of swimming competition.
Kiejko swept the women’s pistol events with a win in the women’s 25- metres.
The Calgary native beat Sandra Uptagrafft 7- 3 in the final round to earn Canada’s third shooting gold of the Games.
Kiejko also won gold in the women’s 10- metre air pistol on Sunday.
“I don’t think words can actually describe how excited and just ecstatic I am right now,” she said. “I was coming into this event with it not being my forte. I have no words. I am over the moon right now.”
In tennis, Philip Bester of North Vancouver, B. C., and Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski settled for silver in mixed doubles tennis after losing to Maria Irigoyen and Guido Andreozzi in the final.
Local notables: Calgary’s Andrew and Graeme Schnell helped the men’s squash team improve to 2- 0 in the classification round after winning 3- 0 over Ecuador, then downing Colombia 2- 1. Russell Wood of Calgary, placed fifth in the final of the men’s 200 backstroke. Calgary’s Yuri Kisil helped Canada’s men’s 4x200 freestyle relay team win the silver medal. John Conway of Calgary scored four goals as Canada won the bronze medal with a 16- 8 decision over Argentina.