What to watch this weekend in sports

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Here are some things for Canadian fans to keep an eye on:

Track and field: The Diamond League season begins

The first of 15 meets in the global series takes place Saturday in Xiamen, China. Throughout the season, athletes will compete for prize money and points toward qualifying for the Diamond League Final in Zurich in late August — just a couple weeks before the world championships in Tokyo.

Last year, shot putter Sarah Mitton became the fourth Canadian ever to win a Diamond League championship, joining hurdler Priscilla Lopes-Schliep (2010), shot putter Dylan Armstrong (2011) and sprinter Andre De Grasse, who won the men's 200m at the 2023 Final.

Mitton is the only Canadian competing in the season opener, where her competition will include two-time reigning world champion Chase Jackson of the United States and China's Gong Lijiao, a two-time world champ and the Olympic gold medallist in 2021. Mitton took silver at the 2023 worlds and captured her second consecutive indoor world title last month.

Other stars in action Saturday include pole vault sensation Mondo Duplantis of Sweden and back-to-back-to-back Olympic 1,500m champ Faith Kipyegon of Kenya, who's racing the 1,000m as she prepares to attempt a four-minute mile this June. Two-time reigning world champion Shericka Jackson of Jamaica is running the 200m, while the men's 100m is headlined by Botswana's Letsile Tebogo, who won silver at the last world championships before capturing Olympic 200m gold in Paris. Here's the full schedule and startlists. 

For more on the Diamond League, read this explainer from CBC Sports' Justin Piercy. Watch Saturday's meet live on CBC Gem and CBCSports.ca from 7-9 a.m. ET.

On Sunday, Eliud Kipchoge goes for his fifth London Marathon title in the Kenyan star's first race since failing to finish at the Paris Olympics, where he was trying for his third consecutive gold medal. The women's division features a clash between the Netherlands' Sifan Hassan and Tigst Assefa, the gold and silver medallists in Paris.

Curling: Canada goes for its first mixed doubles world title

Here's a surprising fact: Canada, by far the planet's top producer of elite curlers, has never won the mixed doubles world championship.

Sure, this version of the sport is relatively new, but it's not like it was invented yesterday. The first mixed doubles worlds were held in 2008, and they've taken place every year since with the exception of Covid-spoiled 2020. So that's 16 tournaments, and all Canada has to show for them is two silver medals and two bronze.

Part of the problem early on was that Canada didn't really take mixed doubles seriously. That began to change when it joined the Olympic program in 2018 and Canada's Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris won gold, showing other big names that mixed doubles is worth their attention.

But the influx of talent hasn't made a huge difference. Morris and now three-time women's world champion skip Rachel Homan didn't even make the playoffs at the 2022 Olympics, and only one Canadian duo has reached the podium at the world championship since 2018. That was Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant, who took silver in 2019 before the star pairings of Kerri Einarson and Brad Gushue and Jennifer Jones and her husband Brent Laing lost the bronze game in 2021 and '23, respectively.