{"id":56628,"date":"2015-07-22T12:20:40","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T04:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=56628"},"modified":"2015-07-22T12:20:40","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T04:20:40","slug":"pan-am-roundup-canada-wins-seven-track-medals-in-solid-day-at-pan-am-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/22\/pan-am-roundup-canada-wins-seven-track-medals-in-solid-day-at-pan-am-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Pan Am Roundup: Canada wins seven track medals in solid day at Pan Am Games"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shawnacy<\/a>
Shawnacy Barber (Photo from the Canadian Olympic Committee<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2013 A threadbare Canadian track and field team came home with just four medals at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s athletes have already more than doubled that modest total after just one full day at the track in Toronto.<\/p>\n

The host nation picked up eight medals in athletics, including four gold, in Tuesday\u2019s competition at the 2015 Pan Am Games. With gold and silver from Sunday\u2019s 20-kilometre race walk, Canada leads all nations in athletics with five gold medals and is tied with the United States at 10 medals overall.<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s Shawnacy Barber and Vancouver\u2019s Elizabeth Gleadle set the tone early with a gold medal each.<\/p>\n

Barber equaled a Pan Am record, clearing 5.80 metres to win gold in men\u2019s pole vault and Gleadle won gold in women\u2019s javelin with a throw of 62.83 metres on her sixth and final attempt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m having a really phenomenal year for me. I\u2019m hitting the marks that I dreamed of,\u201d Barber said.<\/p>\n

Gleadle was trailing American Kara Winger when she stepped up to take her final javelin throw, clapping her hands to get the crowd going.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking \u2018Oh no, I\u2019d better get it together,\u2019\u201d Gleadle said. \u201cI was standing there and I thought to myself \u2018I bet the Canadian anthem would sound a whole lot better from the podium if I was on it,\u2019 so that inspired me to throw better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada earned more medals in evening competition, with Matt Hughes winning gold and Alex Genest taking silver in the men\u2019s 3,000-metre steeplechase and Mohammed Ahmed winning the men\u2019s 10,000 metres.<\/p>\n

Hughes, form Oshawa, Ont., finished the steeplechase in eight minutes 32.18 seconds with Genest, from Shawinigan, Que., right behind in 8:33.83. Cory Leslie of the U.S. won bronze.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was about competing for the fans that paid good money to come watch us race, and family and friends, and you don\u2019t get many opportunities to compete on a stage like this,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cToronto is like home for me as well, so winning in front of your family and friends is something you don’t get to do very often.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably will never run a major championships in Canada ever again, because there will probably never be one in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes pulled away from the pack with three laps to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a similar move in the national championships a few weeks ago, so I was confident in that move,\u201d he said. \u201cI was hoping that Alex knew when I was going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmed, from St. Catharines, Ont., won the 10,000 in 29:49.96, ahead of American Aron Rono (28:50.83) and Mexico’s Juan Luis Barrios (28:51.57).<\/p>\n

Tim Nedow from Brockville, Ont., earned silver in the men\u2019s shot put with a throw of 20.53 metres. Jamaica\u2019s O\u2019Dayne Richards won gold with a throw of 21.69 metres, breaking the Pan Am record previously held by Canada’s Dylan Armstrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been throwing 20.50 all year, so there was no excuse not to throw it here, so I am glad I did that,\u201d Nedow said.<\/p>\n

Sultana Frizell of Perth, Ont., took bronze in the women\u2019s hammer throw with a toss of 69.51 metres, while Toronto\u2019s Nikkita Holder won bronze in the women\u2019s 100 hurdles in 12.85 seconds.<\/p>\n

Canada ended Tuesday with 59 gold, 53 silver and 48 bronze. The host nation has won at least one gold in each day of medal competition.<\/p>\n

The United States leads with 69 gold and 183 total medals. Brazil is third with 32 gold and 110 medals.<\/p>\n

Sprinter Andre De Grasse will be looking to add to Canada\u2019s medal haul. He ran 10.06 seconds in winning in his 100-metre heat to qualify for Wednesday’s semifinals.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Canada\u2019s women\u2019s and men\u2019s table tennis teams each came away with a bronze medal.<\/p>\n

The men lost their semifinal match 3-0 to Brazil while the women fell 3-0 to the United States.<\/p>\n

Fencer Hugues Boisvert-Simard of Quebec City added bronze in the men\u2019s epee.<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s basketball team opened with a comfortable 105-88 win over the Dominican Republic. Brady Heslip of Burlington, Ont., led Canada with 24 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s kind of becoming a guy that you can\u2019t leave off of the team,\u201d Canadian GM Steve Nash said of Heslip. \u201cHe just brings something to the table that is so valuable. Every time the level is raised, he finds a way to raise his game to that level. As you saw tonight, he was a special player. You don’t want to bet against a guy like Brady. He figures it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montreal boxer Caroline Veyre advanced to the women\u2019s lightweight final with a split decision win over Mirquin Sena of the Dominican Republic. Veyre will face Argentina’s Dayana Sanchez in the final on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Mandy Bujold will also get no less than a silver medal after she earned a split decision over Colombia\u2019s Victoria Valencia in the semifinals of the women\u2019s flyweight tournament. The defending Pan Am champion from Kitchener, Ont., will face American Marlen Esparza on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s Arthur Biyarslanov beat Argentina’s Lucas Giminez on points to advance to the semifinals of the men’s light welterweight tournament.<\/p>\n

In the last boxing match of the night, Ariane Fortin of Saint-Nicolas, Que., settled for bronze after losing her middleweight semifinal bout to Yenebier Guillen Benitez of the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n

The Canadian men\u2019s field hockey team moved on to the semifinals with a 3-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago. The Vancouver trio of Iain Smythe, Matthew Sarmento and Scott Tupper provided the offence while goalkeeper David Carter, also from Vancouver, preserved the clean sheet for the Canadians.<\/p>\n

Canada came form two sets down to beat the United States 3-2 and advance to the men\u2019s volleyball semifinals.<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Winnipeg’s Taylor Pischke just missed a chance at winning Canada\u2019s first Pan Am beach volleyball medal, falling 2-0 to Brazil in the women\u2019s bronze-medal match.<\/p>\n

Canada thumped Venezuela 9-3 to improve to 2-0 in women\u2019s baseball. But in women\u2019s softball, the Canadians were routed 7-0 by their American rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 A threadbare Canadian track and field team came home with just four medals at the 2011 Pan American …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":56630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-56628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-original","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}