This coverage was first sent as an email newsletter to our subscribers. Sign up to receive it, for free, on our Ottawa at the Canada Games page. Newsletter by Keiran Gorsky, Martin Cleary, Dan Plouffe, Tyler Reis-Sanford & Farrah Philpot Ask any of the players in the Canada Summer Games volleyball event how they got into the sport and there is likely only one who will tell you it involves an anime cartoon and a low-key beach volleyball tournament at school. Deng Yout, whose Ontario men’s team met his birth province of Alberta Thursday at St. John’s 2025, hesitates to admit how he was first exposed to volleyball. His first taste came from watching the volleyball anime Haikyu!!. It may or may not have filled his head with certain romantic notions. “It’s the opinion everyone has when they first see volleyball,” he recalled in conversation with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Keiran Gorsky. “They think it’s easy. That’s what I thought too.” It turned out to be anything but. Yout has never been able to forget one particular beach tournament he and a Notre Dame High School teammate attended. Yout’s teammate seemed to gradually check out as they took a number of consecutive beatings. Deng Yout (left). Photo: Keiran Gorsky Their coach couldn’t help but notice how Yout, in contrast, never seemed to relent, even as they succumbed in the quarter-finals. He recommended that Yout join the Ottawa Fusion club, it being the least expensive local option. ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ “Since then, I’ve been super loyal to them. I love that club,” he smiled. Yout didn’t play Thursday afternoon as Ontario team bested Alberta in deceptively straight sets, 32-30, 25-22, 25-14, although his presence on the provincial team remains a remarkable feat nonetheless given his later start in volleyball. The outside hitter still committed himself to standing and shouting for most of the match, draped proudly in the Ontario flag. “I came in here walking with the flag,” Yout laughed. “I just called myself Mr. O – Mr. Ontario. I wanted to cheer my teammates on, do the best I could do from the bench.” Though Calgary-born, Yout left no question as to his allegiance. “I loved living there, I had a great childhood there, but if I could represent any province, it would definitely be Ontario,” he affirmed. All in all, it was an impressive display of resilience from Team Ontario, which battled its way back from five points down late in the first set. The result cemented their spot at the top of the group with a 3-0 record, even as they arrived there with some difficulty. They will play the winner of the qualifying match between Nova Scotia and British Columbia Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals.
Madison Murphy places 3rd in artistic swimming free routine
Madison Murphy. Photo: Keiran Gorsky There’s something strangely isolating about artistic swimming. Performers might emerge from the water with smiles glued to their faces for the brief moments you actually see their faces. For the bulk of their choreography, though, their heads are stuck deep under water. It isn’t so easy to hear your family and friends roaring from the stands when you’re counting the beats to the soundtrack from Romeo and Juliet, blaring from waterproof speakers. “It definitely comes with practice,” GO Capital Artistic Swimming Club’s Madison Murphy underlined. “You just kind of hear it, it’s in your ear, and you have no choice but to listen.” Murphy was quite nervous heading into Thursday’s afternoon solo free swim, which she considers her most challenging event. Once she slipped into her routine, though, everything seemed to fall into place. As the music slowly descended into slow and sombre strings, Murphy stayed longer and longer underwater. The 17-year-old spun and twirled and she made a great show of stretching out her arms at the piece’s operatic climax. “[It] goes from really intense fast music to suddenly slow music,” Murphy said of the challenging number that earned her third place in the preliminary round. Madison Murphy. Photo: Keiran Gorsky Her combined score of 401.5950 points, the sum of her score that afternoon and her technical routine on Tuesday, leaves her in fourth overall, roughly 10 points behind Alberta’s Jasmine Peloquin in third. She will get another chance at a free routine during Friday afternoon’s medal flight, after which her combined score will be tallied up one final time. Murphy will hope to add to her medal tally after a third-place finish in the acrobatic routine at the recent artistic swimming nationals, in addition to medals from representing Canada at the 2023 and 2024 Pan Am youth and junior championships. It’s all been a long time coming for Murphy, who has been in artistic swimming for 11 years. The Orleans swimmer remembers watching her older sister compete years and years ago. “She looked like she was having so much fun, and I thought it was so cool, so I decided to try it too,” Murphy recounted on her entry into the sport. “Maybe one day we’ll get to swim together.” Her sister wasn’t able to come, but her parents and grandparents were in attendance at the Aquarena. Even if their live support is drowned out by the music and the earfuls of water, Murphy is delighted to have them here.Nap time for Ontario divers
Ella Lindsay. Photo: Keiran Gorsky Ottawa’s Ella Lindsay is growing accustomed to lengthy layovers between preliminary and medal dives at the Canada Games. After placing fourth in the preliminary round of the women’s one-metre springboard, she was in for a nine-hour wait before the finals rolled around at long last. “It’s definitely a longer break than we’re used to,” Lindsay laughed. “We’ve been big on nap time with the early mornings and the late nights.” With artistic swimming occupying The Works – Aquarena at Memorial University for the bulk of the afternoon, divers had to flee back to their dorms. Lindsay hoped to catch a late lunch and head to volleyball in the afternoon between bouts of shut eye. The Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club competitor completed what she considers a standard slate of five separate dives in the morning. The 15-year-old, who is competing in the under-20 Canada Games contest, wrapped up the opening round with a combined score of 218.90 points, less than three behind a mentor and frequent synchro partner in Quebec’s Mathilde Laberge. Together, the pair finished third at June’s Canada Cup of Diving in open platform synchro. Ella Lindsay. Photo: Keiran Gorsky “Coming off a break, it’s a little shaky,” Lindsay said of her first two dives at Thursday’s event, which she didn’t feel were up to par. In capturing bronze in the artistic diving event on Tuesday, Lindsay added yet another medal to what has been an immensely successful calendar year, with podium finishes at Edmonton’s Speedo Junior Elite National Diving Championships in July, April’s Dresden International Youth Diving Meet in Germany and the Dive Ontario Summer Provincials in May, where she won five gold medals. It was something of a bumpy start to what Lindsay was hoping would be a comparatively laid back week in Newfoundland. Like much of Team Ontario, Lindsay had her flight rescheduled at the last minute in the midst of the Air Canada strike. “It was definitely a little nerve-wracking,” she described. “We have to get practice done before competition, and we were a little bit worried we might not have that time.” Lindsay went on to finish fifth in the women’s 1 m finals. Ottawa’s Rafael Serey-Cormier, meanwhile, finished the 3 m springboard in 15th place. Rafael Serey-Cormier. Photo: Keiran GorskyDanica Menard captains Ontario women’s soccer to top of group
Ottawa South United Soccer Club product Danica Menard captained Team Ontario as they thumped Manitoba 7-0 in women’s soccer. Her club teammate Fiona Cortes-Browne started alongside her before subbing off at the beginning of the second half. The result sends them straight through to the semi-finals on Saturday, where they will square off against Alberta. The team is coached by Ottawa’s Tracy Vaillancourt. In women’s baseball, Sophia Audet and Sofia Milks of Team Ontario fell 6-5 to B.C., which scored a run in the final inning to eke ahead. With the result, Ontario finished its preliminary pool in third place with a record of 2-2. They’ll play a Saturday morning quarterfinal against Saskatchewan. West Carleton Electric’s Conner Hooper and the Ontario men’s softball team played three more preliminary games, beating Newfoundland and Alberta 12-0 and 12-4 respectively before dropping their final game of the day to Quebec 6-5. Hooper didn’t play against Newfoundland, but recorded a 3-RBI double against Alberta. He went 0-for-1 in his single at-bat against Quebec. In women’s volleyball, Jasmine Chrétien and Eva Génier of the Maverick Volleyball Club helped Ontario cruise past Nova Scotia in straight sets, 25-14, 25-14, 25-19. The Ontario men’s and women’s wrestling teams will both wrestle for medals Friday thanks to their unbeaten records in preliminary round duels. Dexter Bates and the Ontario men will go for gold after walking away with a perfect 5-0 mark and convincing margins of victory. Bates scored 4-0 points in each of his men’s 67 kg matches Thursday against New Brunswick (43-5 Ontario team win), Saskatchewan (36-13) and Quebec (38-9). Makinleigh Courtney and the Ontario women will have what is effectively a semi-final duel with fellow 5-0 side Alberta Friday morning in their final pool contest. Courtney pinned Quebec’s Uchechi Ugochukwu in less than 30 seconds as Ontario skunked their neighbours 51-0 Thursday.Day 14 Preview: National Capital Wrestling Club grapplers share dedication, unbeaten streaks
Dexter Bates of Holy Trinity (centre) did not allow a point to be scored against him en route to OFSAA wrestling gold. Photo provided Dexter Bates’ remarkable wrestling run is continuing at the Canada Games. The 17-year-old had a perfect Grade 11 season for the Holy Trinity Tornadoes en route to the OFSAA boys’ 64-kilogram gold medal, and he’s unbeaten again up to this point in the Canada Games wrestling tournament. Bates competed in 15 conference, city, and provincial matches during his high school season and he ended every one of them in the first of two periods. His unbeaten run came on the heels of a difficult 2024 OFSAA championship. After losing his first match to eventual silver-medallist Luke Redmond-Jaworsk of Monsignor Doyle 19-9, he won his second match over Pascal Hunt of Theriault 11-0 to keep his medal hopes alive for the bronze. But during his second match, Bates slammed his head into the mat, blacked out briefly, but finished with the win. After the match, he was checked out by the medical staff, which determined he had suffered a concussion. Bates sadly withdrew from the competition. “I was obviously upset,” the National Capital Wrestling Club athlete told High Achievers ist Martin Cleary. “This was my redemption year. I had been doing a lot more training and I was confident I could go all the way to the top three.” In his first two years as a wrestler, Bates would participate in many tournaments and come away with an array of wins and losses. He studied each loss and corrected his mistakes for future bouts. Over time, he has slowly improved to the point where he struck a hit note as an OFSAA champion, and he also recently qualified to represent Canada internationally at the youth level. “The biggest thing is to be patient and trust the process,” Bates indicated. “I can’t say I expected [a perfect high school season]. I expected more big struggles. I thought it would be a double-digit match versus my opponent in the final. Since I saw him last, I have improved drastically.” Bates entered wrestling two years ago, after training and competing in the self-defence martial art of jiu-jitsu for eight years, which gave him a good base of strength and taught him a lot about the mental side of sport. “I knew what it takes to get to the top,” said Bates, who entered numerous jiu-jitsu tournaments and once won one provincial title. “I knew … how to get my mind in the right tournament mentality.” Bates will compete for the top of the podium in the men’s team competition Friday and then he’ll have a chance for a second medal in Saturday’s individual men’s 65 kg event. Makinleigh Courtney. File photo Another NCWC athlete has been unbeatable thus far in the women’s team competition. Makinleigh Courtney has posted nothing but wins so far and will shoot for a team medal Friday as well. The 16-year-old Kingston resident tries to make two trips a week to Ottawa, there and back, so she can get personalized feedback from NCWC coach Chris Schrauwen. Her father Darryl Courtney at the wheel for the four-hour round trips, Courtney’s gotten into the habit of taking a nap, sometimes on the way there, sometimes on the return trip. “Depends on the day,” she laughed in a pre-Games interview with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Keiran Gorsky. Courtney has only been wrestling for three years, although since age five, she’s participated in jiujitsu, like her father before her. “Martial arts in general builds such confidence in children,” said the elder Courtney, who has enrolled all three of his daughters in jiujitsu academies. “It’s not just being able to protect yourself, but really all challenges in life.” Where jiujitsu was exclusively an out-of-school activity, wrestling has granted Courtney the opportunity to attend high school tournaments and to build friendships in a new environment. Her family recently moved closer to Kingston’s city centre and away from rural Sydenham, chiefly so she could attend a high school with a wrestling team. She placed second at this year’s OFSAA championships and later qualified to represent Ontario in St. John’s. In the lead-up to her trip to Newfoundland, Courtney added an extra training ground a little closer to home. Together with two other fathers of martial arts kids, Darryl acquired some space on the second floor of a warehouse a half-hour away from their home. Before the Games, Courtney said a podium finish would be acceptable, but the goal is to take home the gold in St. John’s. Other local athletes in action Friday: A past Team Canada player, Fitzroy Harbour’s Conner Hopper is off to a standout start with the Ontario men’s softball team at the St. John’s 2025 Canada Summer Games. Photo: @_connerhopper Instagram Conner Hopper and Team Ontario will practically live at the men’s softball diamond come the afternoon, with three games set to be played with Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C. Madison Murphy will swim twice Friday in both the solo and team artistic swimming competitions, while diver Ella Lindsay will compete in her favourite event, the women’s platform. Zach Jeggo (men’s 400 m), Will Batley (men’s 4×100 m relay) and Joshua Foster (triple jump) will all compete in track and field finals. Deng Yout and the Ontario volleyball men will play an evening quarterfinal, while Jasmine Chrétien, Eva Génier and the Ontario women will face Quebec earlier in the afternoon.Ottawa at the Canada Games Daily Newsletter
A huge team of 48 Ottawa athletes is competing at the St. John’s 2025 Canada Summer Games in Newfoundland. The Ottawa Sports Pages will be sending out a free daily email newsletter with recaps, previews and profiles throughout the Aug. 9-24 national youth multi-sport event. Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. By clicking on the submit button, you consent to receive the above newsletter from the Ottawa Sports Pages. You may unsubscribe by clicking on the link at the bottom of our emails. Ottawa Sports Pages | 21 Kolo Dr., Ashton, Ont., K0A 1B0 | 613-261-5838 HELP SHINE A LIGHT ON LOCAL SPORT! You can offer valuable support for our not-for-profit organization to provide a voice for local sport with a tax-deductible charitable donation to the Ottawa Sports Pages Fund via OCF-FCO.ca/Ottawa-Sports-Pages-Fund today.Related
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