Canadian women play for Rio
Only one Olympic berth available among 10 teams at Edmonton tournament
EDMONTON— You know them as Pan Am Games gold medallists, a good team that broke through on a big home stage to win over more admirers and fans and the first senior basketball gold medal in Canadian history.
But that was simply their opening act, an introductory prelude to the summer’s main task, a fun five-game run.
The real work starts here Sunday for the Canadian women’s basketball team as it chases what is seen as a program-altering berth in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“I think qualifying a year in advance would change everything,” said Lizanne Murphy, the veteran forward from Beaconsfield, Que.
Winning the 10-team tournament that kicks off Sunday afternoon at the Saville Centre here would give Canada a chance to truly set itself up for a medal run in Rio.
Players would be able to tailor training programs and set up professional seasons that dovetail with what’s needed for Canada to improve on its fifth-place finish at the 2014 world championships and its top eight placing at the 2012 London Olympics.
Instead of having to qualify in a last-chance tournament like they did in 2012— earning a London berth on Canada Day that year and less than a month before the start of the Olympics — they would have ample time to put a solid training program in place. “If we qualify . . . for the next 11 months, I’m going to have one thing on my mind,” said guard Shona Thorburn of Hamilton. “We haven’t ever experienced that before, you can work on fine-tuning a few things because you know that’s all you’re worried about.”
It won’t be easy but Canada does go into the tournament as a big favou- rite and coming off a 5-0 record at the Pan Am Games in Toronto against much the same opposition.
Cuba, which played Canada to a three-point game at the Pan Am Games, is seen as the biggest obstacle because the United States doesn’t have to qualify by virtue of its 2014 world championship and isn’t even entered here. But neither Canada nor Cuba showed all its offence and defence in Toronto because each team knows this tournament is so much more important.
Young Canadian guards Kia Nurse of Hamilton, Miah-Marie Langlois of Windsor, Ont., and Montreal’s Nirra Fields can expect far more trapping and pressing and Canadian head coach Lisa Thomaidis has been finetuning her team since in it re-as- sembled here for training just over a week ago.
And despite the breakout Pan Am Games for the young trio — Nurse had 33 points in the gold medal game — Thomaidis saw the need for improvement.
“We can always grow and get better, especially with the young guards,” Thomaidis said after her team beat the United States in Toronto. “When you’re their coach, you always see their weaknesses and all of the things they can do better. There’s certainly room for growth there.”
Still, the chance to have another full year to improve with an Olympic berth locked up is intriguing.
“If you qualify the year before, it’s going to be eyes on the podium, we can medal, not ‘hopefully we’ll get there,’ ” said Murphy. “And that will change everything, other countries won’t have that, if we can directly qualify, the team will be focused, it can be building towards Rio and not building towards qualifying.”