TOKYO JAPAN (August 6, 2021) – Canada advances to three semifinals leading into the final day of Olympic sprint competition. Vying for a spot in the A finals, silver medalist Laurence Vincent Lapointe (Trois-Rivières Canoe-Kayak Club) Katie Vincent (Mississauga Canoe Club) will be racing in the women’s C2 semifinals.

Connor Fitzpatrick advances to semifinals with a gutsy comeback in the heats and gruelling quarterfinal in men’s C1 1000m race. Roland Varga was eliminated following a sixth place finish in the quarterfinal.

The men’s K4 500m crew will contest the semifinals with a 5^th place finish (1:24.979) in the quarterfinals today. Mark de Jonge attributes the their success in advancing the boat to the strong bond with his teammates Nicholas Matveev, Pierre-Luc Poulin and Simon McTavish. “We are all really close friends. Over the past few years we have gone through a lot together and we are happy to see that our hard work is paying off. We have a lot of trust in each other to get the job done and that is what we will do tomorrow.”

The Canadian women’s K4 500m team did not succeed in advancing to the semifinals, but will appear in the B Finals. “We are working so well together in the boat but there are 16 crews that are the best in the world so we came out here to perform our best,” said Andréanne Langlois. “It is disappointing but we are still proud of what we have done to get here.” The Canadian crew includes Alanna Bray-Lougheed, Andréanne Langlois, Madeline Schmidt, and Michelle Russell.

Tomorrow, we will mark the final day of the sprint competition with semifinals, A and B Finals. Best of luck to Team Canada!

Tune in live at CBC Olympics Live – schedule below.

More information on the canoe and kayak sprint events can be found on the Tokyo 2020 website here.

Race previews:

Friday August 6 EDT /Saturday August 7 JST

Athlete List

Alternates: Lissa Bissonette, Courtney Stott