Ottawa – Eight more Team Canada athletes earned their tickets to Paris 2024 with their performances this past weekend.
That group includes four skateboarders who clinched their Olympic spots following the conclusion of the Olympic Qualifier Series in Budapest, Hungary and two beach volleyball duos who were victorious at the last chance continental qualifier in Mexico.
Elsewhere, Canada’s Paris 2024-bound men’s volleyball team had themselves a perfect week in Volleyball Nations League action.
Read on for all the news you may have missed:
Skateboarding: Four Canadians qualify for Paris 2024
Cordano Russell, Matt Berger, Ryan Decenzo, and Fay De Fazio Ebert all punched their tickets to Paris 2024 following their performances at the second Olympic Qualifier Series competition in Budapest, Hungary. Russell, Berger, and Decenzo will represent Canada in men’s street while De Fazio Ebert qualified in women’s park.
The results from the two Olympic Qualifier Series competitions in Shanghai and Budapest were combined with the Olympic World Skateboarding Ranking to create a final ranking from which 20 quota spots in each skateboarding event were allocated.
De Fazio Ebert was ranked 23rd overall, but earned a quota spot because there is a maximum of three athletes per country per event and Japan, Brazil, and the United States all had four athletes place ahead of De Fazio Ebert.
The three Canadian men all finished in the top-20 of the men’s street ranking, with Russell at number 16, Berger at number 18, and Decenzo at number 19.
Beach Volleyball: Canada qualifies two teams for Paris at last chance tournament
It was a good weekend for Canadian beach volleyball duos at the NORCECA Olympic Beach Volleyball Qualification tournament in Tlaxcala, Mexico.
Heather Bansley and Sophie Bukovec rolled through the competition on the women’s side, while Sam Schachter and Daniel Dearing did the same on the men’s side to earn spots in their respective tournaments at Paris 2024. Both teams went into the last chance qualifier ranked 24th in the world. They both went 6-0, never dropping a set. They also both beat a Mexican team to clinch their spot.
Bansley and Bukovec will join Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson — who qualified via their world ranking — in the women’s Olympic tournament. Bansley played with Wilkerson at Tokyo 2020 but then retired before returning and teaming up with Bukovec less than a year ago. That was Bansley’s second Olympic appearance following her debut at Rio 2016 with Sarah Pavan. Paris will be the first Olympic Games for Bukovec.