The Olympics torch hasn’t even been lit and already the Games are off to a great start for Oakville’s Diana Matheson and the Canadian women’s soccer team.
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Beckie’s goal will go down in Olympic history as the fastest goal scores in men’s or women’s soccer.
Christine Sinclair made a second big play 80 minutes in, rushing past the Australian defence and goalkeeper – who was standing far down the field. While the Canadians were at full-strength in Toronto, Breanna Stewart, Nurse’s former teammate at UConn, is the only player from the American Pan Ams team that’s on the Olympic team, and the US reestablished their dominance with an 83-43 exhibition win over Canada last week.
She credits players like Christine Sinclair for helping to build the sport.
Stephanie Labbe did not attend the London Olympics, but she will be in the thick of things in Rio.
“We don’t look at the U.S. on their chest anymore”, said Achonwa.
With just two days between games during pool play at the Olympic tournament, Herdman is keeping a close eye on his roster.
Defender Shalena Zadorsky was sent off in the 19th minute after bringing down Australia’s Michelle Heyman in what was rightfully deemed to be the denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity just outside of the penalty area.
This is Canada’s third consecutive appearance at the Women’s Olympic Soccer Tournament.
“We’re obviously very disappointed”.
Zadorsky grabbed an Australian attacker by the shoulder, forcing her down.
She’s also the all-time leading goal scorer for Texas Tech with 57 goals from 2012-2015.
It was not the start the 25-year-old’s family was hoping for as sister Sarah Simon was joined her young son and Grandmother Betty Hampton to watch the game at 4am on Thursday morning.
The global results, says Canadian chef de mission Curt Harnett, show Canada is on pace to reach its goal of a top-12 finish in the final medal standings.
Next up for Canada (1-0-0; 3 points) is a matchup with Zimbabwe Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, while Australia (0-0-1; 0 points) will take on Germany Saturday at 5:00 p.m. Eastern.
Topping 20 medals would be a significant accomplishment for Canada – the last time that happened was 1996 (22 medals).
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“We liken it to buying a new house and moving in that first day”, Harnett said. The bounce of the ball didn’t go our way, we hit the crossbar there once and had a couple of other chances we probably could have done better on, and for me the first half wasn’t too bad.
