 | Today we're catching you up on Canada's top international performances of the weekend. Plus, a Para swimmer breaks three world records at a national championship, the Blue Jays dodge a sweep and the Canada Games are underway in St. John's. | | | Weekend recap: A ski jumping gold — in August
| | | It was a pretty quiet weekend in Olympic sports, but Canadians did put up some notable performances on the international stage. Here's our weekly roundup:
Tennis: No Mboko at the Cincinnati Open
The last big tuneup for the U.S. Open lost a lot of its juice when Vicky Mboko pulled out due to a wrist injury following her thrilling title victory at the National Bank Open in Montreal. The teenage sensation's absence left Leylah Fernandez as the only Canadian in the women's draw in Cincy, but the 21st seed lost in the second round on Saturday to Spain's Jessica Bouzas Maneiro — one of the players Mboko beat in Montreal.
On the men's side, two of the three Canadians are still alive. Felix Auger-Aliassime, seeded 23rd, reached the round of 16 today when France's Arthur Rinderknech quit their match with Felix two games away from victory. 30th-seeded Gabriel Diallo will face world No. 1 Jannik Sinner of Italy in the third round tonight after beating Sebastian Baez on Saturday. Denis Shapovalov, the 24th seed, was eliminated in the second round by Italy's Luca Nardi.
In women's doubles, the second-seeded team of Canada's Gabby Dabrowksi and New Zealand's Erin Routliffe won their opener on Saturday to move on to the round of 16.
Golf: 3 Canadians advance in the FedEx Cup playoffs
Taylor Pendrith, Nick Taylor and Corey Conners tied for 28th, 44th and 50th, respectively, at the playoff-opening St. Jude Championship in Memphis. Nothing spectacular, but those results were enough to send them to this week's BMW Championship near Baltimore for the top 50 players in the season-long points chase.
Conners now ranks 16th while Taylor is 22nd, putting them in position to qualify for the 30-man Tour Championship in Atlanta next week. Pendrith, ranked 35th, is knocking on the door. Mackenzie Hughes was eliminated after tying for 56th at the 70-man St. Jude, dropping him to 65th in the standings.
England's Justin Rose won the St. Jude in a playoff over American J.J. Spaun, vaulting him 25 spots in the Cup chase to fourth. The 45-year-old Rose trails Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Spaun — the three players to win a major this year. England's Tommy Fleetwood finished one shot out of the playoff, once again failing to earn his first career PGA Tour victory.
Rugby: Canadian women win their final World Cup tuneup
The world's second-ranked team survived a bumpy second half to hold off No. 5 Ireland 47-26 on Saturday in Belfast. Florence Symonds scored a pair of tries as Canada raced out to a 33-7 lead at halftime before the Irish outscored them 19-14 the rest of the way.
The Canadians, who improved to 6-0-1 this year, will now head to England for the Women's Rugby World Cup. They open group play on Aug. 23 against No. 14 Fiji, then face No. 9 Wales on Aug. 30 and No. 8 Scotland on Sept. 6.
Canada finished fourth at the last World Cup, held in 2022 in New Zealand.
Ski jumping: Canadian scores a summer win
Ski jumping in August? In the Northern Hemisphere? Yep — in fact, there's a whole Summer Grand Prix circuit in Europe that uses special synthetic surfaces instead of snow. It opened this weekend at Courcheval in the French Alps, where daytime highs are currently in the mid-20s Celsius.
On Saturday, Canada's Abigail Strate leapt to a bronze in the women's large hill event, and on Sunday she upgraded to gold for the first international victory of her career. "I’ve never heard the Canadian anthem played on the podium for myself, so I was bawling my eyes out," said the 24-year-old, who's won five individual medals on the winter World Cup tour and took Olympic bronze in the mixed team event in 2022.
Six male jumpers were disqualified Saturday due to ill-fitting suits, which the sport's world governing body said was a "perfectly normal" result of its stricter rules in the wake of the scandal involving the Norwegian team at the world championships in March. Today, two Olympic gold medallists and three staffers from Norway were charged with ethics violations by FIS, the global governing body, as part of its investigation into “equipment manipulation." | | |  | Canadian ski jumper Abigail Strate won her first international gold medal at a Summer Grand Prix event in the French Alps. (Darko Bandic/Associated Press)
| | | Quickly…
| | | Some other things to know:
1. A Canadian swimmer broke three Para world records in three days.
At the national short-course championships in Sherbrooke, Que., Danielle Dorris set new standards for the 25m pool in the women's SM7 50m backstroke, 50m butterfly and 100m medley events. The 22-year-old from Moncton, N.B., also won gold in the 50m freestyle on Sunday to close out the meet. "It's a nice confidence boost before going into [the long-course world championships] in Singapore next month," she said.
Dorris, who was born with underdeveloped arms due to a condition called bilateral radial dysplasia, became the youngest Canadian to swim in the Paralympics when she competed as a 13-year-old in 2016. She's since won three world titles along with back-to-back Paralympic golds in the 50m butterfly in 2021 and '24.
In other Para sports news, Canada's women's goalball team took silver at the Americas Championships after losing the final 6-2 to host Brazil. The Canadian men's team lost its bronze-medal game 11-6 to the United States.
At the wheelchair basketball Americas Cup, the Canadian women's team was 1-1 heading into today's group-stage final against host Colombia after losing to Brazil 70-62 and routing El Salvador 93-10 over the weekend. The top two teams in the eight-team tournament qualify for next year's world championships in Ottawa, but Canada is already guaranteed a spot as the host. The men's Americas Cup begins later this week.
2. The Blue Jays avoided a sweep at Dodger Stadium.
After losing their first two games against the World Series champs by a combined score of 14-2, Toronto rallied to take the series finale 5-4 on Sunday by hitting three homers in the final two innings. Ernie Clement's solo shot in the top of the ninth put the Jays ahead, and reliever Mason Fluharty earned his first career save by striking out Shohei Ohtani on a full count and getting Mookie Betts to ground out after taking over for shaky closer Jeff Hoffman with the bases loaded.
The Blue Jays (69-50) are one game ahead of Detroit for the best record in the American League and four up on Boston for first place in the AL East. They return home to face the National League wild-card leading Chicago Cubs (67-50) on Tuesday night.
In other baseball news, Jen Pawol became the first woman to umpire a regular-season game in the major leagues when she worked first base for Saturday's doubleheader opener between Atlanta and visiting Miami. Pawol was at third base for the nightcap, then moved behind the plate for Sunday's series finale.
3. The Canada Games have begun.
The Olympics-like event kicked off Saturday in St. John's, and competition involving some 4,200 young athletes in 19 different sports continues through Aug. 24. Here's a report on the opening ceremony and a look at Canada's next generation of softball stars from CBC Sports' Justin Piercy, who's in Newfoundland covering the Games.
You can watch live competition in a wide variety of sports every day on CBCSports.ca and CBC Gem. See the full streaming schedule for details and links to live streams. | | | That's it for today. Talk to you later.
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