What to watch in Olympic sports this weekend
CBC
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A pair of world championships and a near-major golf tournament highlight this weekend's slate for Canadian athletes on the world stage. Here are the key events:
Curling: Women's world championship
After defeating Jennifer Jones in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts final last month in Calgary to capture her fourth Canadian championship, Ottawa skip Rachel Homan will try to end a vexing dry spell for her country. Despite being home to most of the planet's best curlers, Canada has not won a world or Olympic title in any of the mainstream events (women's, men's and mixed doubles) in six years.
Homan might be just the one to halt the gold drought. She and Miskew (Homan's longtime third) won the world title in 2017, and with Fleury and Wilkes now on board the team looked nearly unstoppable at the Scotties. They went 11-0 to boost their record to a sparkling 49-5 this season, and they're No. 1 in the world rankings.
Homan's rink will have the support of a partisan crowd in Sydney N.S., which is hosting the women's worlds for the first time starting Saturday and running through next weekend. But they'll have to get past the likes of Swiss skip Silvana Tirinzoni, who's going for her fifth consecutive world title, and 2018 Olympic gold medallist Anna Hasselborg of Sweden.
Short track speed skating: World championships
Several Canadians should contend for the podium in the Netherlands, where sold-out crowds are expected for the medal events on Saturday and Sunday in the cradle of long track skating. There are individual 500m, 1,000m and 1,500m races for both men and women, plus men's, women's and mixed relays.
Canadian skaters won 35 medals over the six short track World Cup meets this season. Jordan Pierre-Gilles and William Dandjinou finished atop the men's 500m and 1,500m standings, respectively, while Steven Dubois was the runner-up in both the 500m and 1,000m. Felix Roussel placed third in the 500m, but he's been scratched from the worlds after suffering an injury in training yesterday. Pascal Dion was fourth in the 1,500m.
Dubois won a medal of each colour at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, and he was the top Canadian man at last year's world championships in Seoul, taking silver in the 500 and bronze in the 1,000.
Canada's women had a tough World Cup season, with no one cracking the top six in the standings for an individual distance. But the relay team placed third, and Kim Boutin's return offers some upside. The four-time Olympic medallist skipped the first four meets of the season to focus on her studies before capturing a 500m bronze at last month's season finale in Poland. Boutin and Courtney Sarault each won a solo and a relay bronze at last year's worlds.
Watch Saturday's races live starting at 8:30 a.m. ET and Sunday's at 9 a.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.
Golf: The Players Championship
You might not think of golf as an Olympic sport, but this year it is. Sixty players will qualify for the men's tournament in Paris in August based on the world rankings on June 17 — the day after the U.S. Open is completed.
Hockey Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee will name the Olympic women’s hockey team on Friday afternoon, less than a month before the Canadians open the tournament against Finland on Feb. 5.
In 2018, at the Gangneung Ice Arena in Pyeongchang, legendary ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir strapped on their skates for the final time at the Olympics.
Shekai Mills-Knight, a freshman running back for Ole Miss, will earn some attention Thursday night when his Rebels take on the Miami Hurricanes in an NCAA semifinal football game in Glendale, Ariz., but he first made news a decade ago as a grade-schooler deemed too big for the local little league.
Not so long ago, the prospect of two Canadians meeting in Italy’s Serie A would have seemed an unlikely turn. But on Tuesday night in Reggio Emilia, in the crisp, anxious minutes before the whistle blew and host Sassuolo dug in against Juventus, Ismael Koné and Jonathan David stood on opposite sides of the pitch, pretending not to know each other.
This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.
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