Canadian Women's Water Polo Team Places 8th at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
Ottawa, August 10, 2024 - Team Canada finished 8th overall in the women’s tournament at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games held in Paris, France, ending the tournament with a loss against Greece, 4th place finishers at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships.
Canada, who made only its 4th appearance at a Summer Olympic Games - previously in Sydney 2000 (5th Place), Athens 2004 (7th Place), and Tokyo 2020 (7th Place) - won a crucial game against China in the preliminary round, qualifying them for the quarterfinal round. In their quarterfinal match, Canada lost against Spain (the silver medalists at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games) and then fell to Italy (the bronze medalists at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships) in the Classification 5th- 8th Place round. The Canadians closed out the tournament with a loss against Greece.
“It is hard to finish today in this manner. We always want to finish on a good note, and we finished on a very poor note”, said Water Polo Canada Women’s Head Coach David Paradelo. “I’m proud of all the effort, commitment, sacrifices that these athletes have made. They have been in a very tough rodeo for three years, especially the last year, so the dedication is there. It's unfortunate how the events have ended, not how we wanted, absolutely, but proud of them no matter what.”
“It’s definitely disappointing” said Team Captain Emma Wright. “I don’t think that we showed who we are as a team. I don’t think any of us had our best game which is unfortunate. There were a lot of strong moments for sure. We showed in different quarters that we had fight and that we can play against these teams, but unfortunately it wasn’t our tournament.” She continued to say: “we came here because we knew we were a top eight team and we’ve proven that, and that’s important. Obviously, we wanted to place better. In Doha at Worlds, we’ve shown it, here we’ve shown it and that’s good on our part.”
“Although we have not achieved our targets for this event, we remain extremely proud of our Women’s Team and their dedicated efforts to represent us on the Olympic stage, for only the second time in the last two decades” added Water Polo Canada’s High-Performance Director, Olivier Pineau. “We will now look to take away important lessons from this event and Olympic cycle, over the coming months, so as to make tangible improvements to our programming, in hopes of coming back stronger to future Olympic Games."
The Canadian Women's water polo team for the 2024 Paris Games
BAKOC, Verica (Toronto, ON)
BROWNE, Serena (Pointe-Claire, QC)
CREVIER, Axelle (Montréal, QC)
GAUDREAULT, Jessica (Ottawa, ON)
LAROCHE, Shae (Winnipeg, MB)
LEKNESS, Rae (Calgary, AB)
LEMAY-LAVOIE, Elyse (Montréal, QC)
MCDOWELL, Blaire (Fernie, B.C.)
MCKELVEY, Hayley (North Delta, B.C.)
MIMIDES, Maria Eleni (Marilia) (Glyfada, GRE)
PAUL, Kindred (Spruce Grove, AB)
VULPISI, Clara (Montréal, QC)
WRIGHT, Emma (Lindsay, ON)
Support Staff
Head Coach: David Paradelo
Assistant Coaches: Cora Campbell & Stefano Posterivo
Massage Therapist: Manon Prieur
Physiotherapist: Brian Li
Strength and Conditioning Coach: Nicolas Bourrel
Team Leader: Mitch Kaufman
