Canadian athletes come close, but miss podium on day five of Rio Paralympics

“It is very frustrating and devastating.”

There were two more fourth-place finishes for Canada in swimming.

Nathan Stein of Surrey, B.C., and Alec Elliot of Kitchener, Ont., were fourth and fifth in the men’s S10 100-metre butterfly while Sarah Mehain of Vernon, B.C., and Tess Routliffe of Caledon, Ont., were fourth and eighth in the women’s S7 50-metre butterfly.

Samantha Ryan of Saskatoon was fifth in the women’s S10 100-metre butterfly.

On the track, six-time Paralympian Diane Roy of Sherbrooke, Que., advanced to Tuesday’s final in the women’s T54 1,500-metre, placing third in her heat and 10th overall.

“I am very happy about my race,” said the 45-year-old Roy, with five Paralympic medals to her name.

“The objective is achieved. I wanted to finish in the group’s top-three to have a chance to be in the final. Now the challenge will be to do the same tomorrow and be even better.”

Arinn Young and Cindy Ouellet combined for more than half of Canada’s points as the women’s wheelchair basketball team defeated Brazil 82-49.

Young, of Legal, Atla., scored 22 points while Quebec City’s Ouellet added 20 as the Canadians improved to 3-1 at the tournament after a disappointing loss to Germany on Sunday.

Germany and Britain were also 3-1 in Pool A but ranked first and second on the tie-breaking procedure. Canada now advances to Tuesday’s quarter-final against the Netherlands, which was second in Pool B also at 3-1.

“We are really excited and ready to go. We’re done the round-robin games now and so we are really pumped to get the playoffs started,” said Young.

“We are pretty confident going into the quarter-finals.”

The men’s wheelchair basketball team will be leaving Rio full of disappointment after a 67-46 loss to Turkey in group play.

Montreal’s David Eng, Canada’s flag bearer from the opening ceremonies, scored a team-high 15 points as the Canadians dropped to 0-5, failing to reach the quarter-finals.

Canada was the defending champions from 2012 London and had reached the championship game in each of the past four Games, coming away with three gold and a silver.

“We all had high hopes to accomplish a little bit more here,” said co-captain Bo Hedges of Wonowon, B.C.

The sailing competition got underway Monday and John McRoberts and Jackie Gay of Victoria are off to a fine start in the two-person keelboat (Skud 18). They were fifth in race one and first in race two. They are second overall after two of 11 races.

In archery, Karen Van Nest of North Bay, Ont., and Kevin Evans of Jaffray, B.C. opened the mixed team compound event with a victory over Spain but lost in the quarter-final to China.

The Canadian men’s and women’s goalball teams dropped to 1-2 after losses on Monday. The men fell to Algeria 17-13 in the morning while the women lost 8-3 to China in evening play.

In wheelchair fencing, Pierre Mainville of St-Colomban, Que., went 1-3 in the preliminary round to advance to the quarter-finals where he lost 15-6 to Panagiotis Triantafyllou of Greece.

Through five days of competition Canada has earned 12 medals, including three gold and seven silver. That’s good enough for 13th place in the total medal standings. China leads the way with 118 medals, including 50 gold.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Canadian athletes come close, but miss podium on day five of Rio Paralympics

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