Women’s Soccer League, but she’s
not about to give up on her Olympic
gold medal dream quite yet. Although
she’ll be 33 when the Tokyo Games roll
around, she still believes that both she
and the Canadian team is capable of
winning gold.
“For the next little while I’m going
to relish in this moment of coming
home with another bronze medal,”
she conceded. “But after that, it’s up in
the air. I’m going to take some time to
just think and the new year will decide
where this will take me.
“But I do want a different colour
medal and that has desire has always
fueled my fire. That gold medal is
looming over my head.”
Schmidt, who moved to Abbotsford,
B.C., from Winnipeg in high school
admitted that at the end of the bronze
medal match, the entire team had
reached an emotional high.
“I was pumped at the end,” said
Schmidt who entered the match in
the 66th minute. “We always felt calm
and never felt like we were going to
Nicole Sifuentes
Chantal van Lendeghem in Rio
Justin Duff
lose, but in that situation there’s the
excitement of wanting the final whistle
to blow and also wanting to score
another one. When you come in as a
substitute you want to fight
for your teammates.
“When the final whistle
blew, I stopped and looked
at my teammates and
we all just let our guard
down. It was
so rewarding
for all of us. It’s
moments like
that you cherish
forever.”
Not
surprisingly, a
Manitoban was
involved when
Canada won its
first medal at the Games.
In the opening day’s final
event in the pool, the team of van
Landeghem, 16-year-old sensation
Penny Oleksiak, Sandrine Mainville of
Boucherville, Que., and Taylor Ruck
Sarah Anne Brault
(left) at Rio 2016
of Kelowna, B.C., another 16-year-old,
finish the women’s 4X100 relay in a
time of three minutes, 32.89 seconds.
It was good enough for bronze and
Canada’s first medal in the event in 40
years. Australia won gold, while the
United States took silver.
“We belong here and we belong on
that podium,” van Landeghem told
CBC TV the night of the team’s bronzemedal performance. “I’m just so
excited. I’m so proud of these girls and
I hope we made Canada proud.”
Manitoba’s other Olympians didn’t
come home with medals, but most
fared well.
In athletics, Winnipeg’s Nicole
Sifuentes was seventh in the
sportslife / 11