 | Today we're recapping a successful weekend for Canada's winter Olympic athletes. Plus, the Blue Jays (finally!) land a big free agent, the NFL's conference championship matchups are set and the Australian Open quarterfinals begin. | | | Weekend recap: Canadian winter athletes strike gold
| | | After a four-medal Friday, Canada's winter Olympic athletes won more hardware at home and abroad over the weekend. Here's a look at the top results:
Canada's best figure skaters retained their national titles.
The country's top two contenders for an Olympic medal next year both successfully defended their crowns at the Canadian championships in Laval, Que. Reigning pairs world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps captured their third straight national title while world ice dance silver medallists Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier won their fourth.
Madeline Schizas (18th at last year's worlds) took the women's event for the third time in her career, and Roman Sadovsky (19th at worlds) earned his second men's title.
Each of the winners were named to Canada's roster for next month's Four Continents championships in Seoul, and all but Sadovksy were selected for the world championships in Boston in late March. Canada's lone men's entry there is "to be announced." Here are the full lists.
Ski jumper Alex Loutitt captured a World Cup gold.
The reigning women's large hill world champion soared to her second career World Cup victory on Saturday in Japan. It came almost exactly two years after Loutitt's first win, also in Japan, which led to her gold at the world championships a couple months later.
Loutitt, who earned an Olympic bronze in the mixed team event in 2022, reached the World Cup individual podium six times last season to finish third in the standings. Saturday's gold was the first medal of this season for the 21-year-old.
Hallie Clarke completed an unprecedented skeleton double.
As a 19-year-old last February, Clarke became the youngest world champion in the history of the sport with her surprising victory at the worlds in Germany. On Saturday in Switzerland, she added the junior world championship, making her the first skeleton athlete ever to hold those two titles at the same time.
"It’s a little funny that I was able to get both titles backwards," said Clarke. "But I learned so much from the world championships last year."
Teenage snowboarder Cameron Spalding won again.
The 19-year-old took Saturday's men's slopestyle event in Switzerland for his second World Cup victory of the season. Spalding has won both slopestyle events so far while finishing 14th in a pair of big air competitions.
Fellow Canadian Liam Brearley just missed the podium, placing fourth. Canada's Megan Oldham took silver in the women's ski slopestyle event on Friday.
Rachel Homan fell just short of her third consecutive Grand Slam of Curling title.
The reigning world champion gave up two points in the final end to fall 7-5 to Sweden's Anna Hasselborg in the women's final at the Masters in Guelph, Ont. It was Hasselborg's first Slam trophy since 2022. Homan beat her in the final at last month's National to capture her record-extending 17th Grand Slam women's title.
On the men's side, Scotland's Ross Whyte captured his first Slam title with a 5-4 win over Canadian Brad Jacobs. Here's more on the men's and women's finals.
Other key Canadian results:
* Marion Thénault took bronze in the women's aerials World Cup season opener in Lake Placid, N.Y., while the Canadian team of Alexandra Montminy, Miha Fontaine and Alexandre Duchaine earned silver in the mixed team event.
* Alpine skier Cam Alexander placed fifth in the classic Lauberhorn men's downhill Saturday in Wengen, Switzerland. Jack Crawford was ninth after missing the super-G podium by 0.04 of a second on Friday.
* Val Grenier finished 21st in the women's downhill and 15th in the super-G at Italy's Cortina d'Ampezzo, which will host Olympic races next year. Twelve-time Cortina winner Lindsey Vonn of the U.S. was 20th in the downhill and crashed out of the super-G, though she was not injured. | | |  | Canada's Alex Loutitt won a World Cup ski jumping event for the second time in her young career. (Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images)
| | | Quickly…
| | | Some other things to know:
1. The Blue Jays finally landed a big-time free agent.
After striking out on star Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki over the weekend — along with Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes and Shohei Ohtani over the last two winters — the Jays have reportedly agreed with switch-hitting outfielder Anthony Santander on a five-year, $90M US deal.
Santander, 30, was considered one of the best hitters available after swatting a career-high 44 homers for Baltimore last season. That ranked third in the majors, behind the Yankees' Aaron Judge (58) and Ohtani (54), whose Dodgers signed Sasaki. But Santander's on-base percentage was just .308 (compare that to .458 and .390 for the two MVPs) and he's not strong defensively. Here's more on Santander.
2. The NFL's final four is set.
Buffalo's Josh Allen defeated Baltimore's Lamar Jackson in last night's second-round showdown between the MVP contenders as the Bills hung on for a thrilling 27-25 win in snowy Orchard Park, N.Y. Allen rushed for two touchdowns in the first half to stake Buffalo to a 21-10 lead before the Ravens came back and had a chance to tie with a two-point conversion following Jackson's second TD pass of the night with 1:33 left. But tight end Mark Andrews, who lost a fumble earlier, dropped a pass at the goal-line. Jackson also had a fumble and an interception, while Allen and the Bills did not turn the ball over.
The Bills will travel to Arrowhead Stadium for Sunday night's AFC championship game against Kansas City, which eliminated Buffalo in three of the past four years. K.C. beat Houston 23-14 on Saturday as Travis Kelce caught seven passes from Patrick Mahomes for a season-high 117 yards and a TD.
The NFC title game on Sunday afternoon sees Philadelphia hosting surprising Washington. The Commanders shocked top-seeded Detroit 45-31 on Saturday night with five turnovers and another dazzling performance by rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels. The Eagles took out the L.A. Rams 28-22 in snowy Philly yesterday afternoon as Saquon Barkley rushed for a franchise playoff record 205 yards.
In other NFL news today, the Chicago Bears are reportedly set to hire Ben Johnson, the creative young offensive co-ordinator for the division-rival Lions, as their new head coach.
The college football national championship game is tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET in Atlanta. Ohio State is an eight-point favourite over Notre Dame.
3. Canadian doubles specialist Gabriela Dabrowski reached the Australian Open quarterfinals.
Dabrowski and her teammate Erin Routliffe of New Zealand rallied to defeat Germany's Laura Siegemund and Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 today in Melbourne to advance to the final eight in women's doubles. The No. 2 seeds will face Japan's Miyu Kato and Mexico's Renata Zarazua tonight at 7 p.m. ET.
The top three men's seeds — Italy's Jannik Sinner, Germany's Alexander Zverev and Spain's Carlos Alcaraz — are still alive along with seventh-seeded Serbian Novak Djokovic, who's trying for a record 25th Grand Slam title. He'll face Alcaraz in the quarterfinals Tuesday morning.
The women's top three — Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, Poland's Iga Swiatek and American Coco Gauff — are all into the quarterfinals too.
| | | That's it for today. Talk to you tomorrow.
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