Trio of Ottawa-area athletes bronzed on Gold Coast
Commonwealth Games medals in triathlon, cycling
Colour the national capital athletes bronze after the 2018 Commonwealth Games opened Thursday in Gold Coast, Australia.
A courageous Joanna Brown of Carp overcame a serious shoulder injury, which threatened to scratch her from the women’s sprint triathlon, and captured Canada’s first medal of the Games, a bronze, in dramatic fashion.
Cyclists Derek Gee of Osgoode and Ariane Bonhomme of Gatineau followed her lead on the track, helping Canada’s respective men’s and women’s team pursuit squads earn matching bronze medals.
In the outdoor evening swimming competition, Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson of Ottawa missed the women’s 400-metre individual medley bronze medal by 0.28 seconds, finishing fourth in 4:38.51.
A month before the Commonwealth Games, Brown sustained an impact fracture to her left shoulder humerus bone when she crashed in a World Triathlon Series race in Abu Dhabi. Her first two weeks of recovery were painful, showed little progress and threatened her participation in the Games.
But a Belgian physiotherapist, who was at a training camp with a different team in Gold Coast, volunteered to assist Brown and accelerated her recuperation. His effort was complemented by the work and support of many Team Canada medical staff and the encouragement of fellow athletes.
“It feels surreal,” Brown said about her bronze medal, which she wanted to share with her recovery team. “I was so happy just to start. It was a huge team effort to get me to the start line.”
Brown finished the 750-metre swim in 11th place, feeling some shoulder pain from her strokes and occasional bumping in the water. In the 20-km cycle, she saved energy by cruising in a group of nine riders who were eyeing the bronze.
With her feet on the ground, she excelled in the five-km run, posting the fastest time of 16:31.
“I was relaxed, patient and gave it all I had.”
Two-time defending world champion Flora Duffy of Bermuda won in 56:50, while Brown took third in 57:38.
In the men’s sprint triathlon, Alexis Lepage of Gatineau was 13th.
Gee won the biggest medal of his young international career in his signature race.
“It’s incredible,” Gee said in a telephone interview after the Canadian team averaged 59.89 km/h over 4,000 metres to finish in 4:00.440 and edge Wales by 0.992 seconds. “We went in to fight for the bronze, and it’s nice when it pays off.”
Bonhomme was disappointed by the Canadian women’s qualifying race, which left the four-woman team 0.153 seconds short of the gold-medal race.
“We wanted to prove (in the bronze-medal race) we could do a better ride than the qualifying,” she said.
Samantha Cornett of Carp needed only 15 minutes to win her round-of-32 women’s singles squash match, defeating Mary Fung-A-Fat of Guyana 11-5, 11-2, 11-4.
Ottawa’s Eli Wall placed eighth in the men’s 200-metre breaststroke in 2:11.94.