 | Today we're looking ahead to an interesting weekend of summer Olympic sports that includes Canadian stars Summer McIntosh and Andre De Grasse. Plus, a weird Canadian curling drought continues, the second round of the NHL playoffs takes shape and Gregg Popovich steps away from coaching. | | | What to watch this weekend in Olympic sports
| | | Canada's two biggest summer Olympic stars are competing over the next couple days. Here's what Summer McIntosh and Andre De Grasse are up to, and what to know about a big rugby sevens event involving the Olympic silver-winning Canadian women's team.
Swimming: Summer McIntosh goes to work
This week's Pro Swim Series stop in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is loaded with big names. Along with McIntosh, the 18-year-old Canadian superstar won won three golds and a silver at the Paris Games last summer, the list of current and former Olympic champions in the water includes France's Leon Marchand, Americans Katie Ledecky, Kate Douglass and Caeleb Dressel, and Canada's Penny Oleksiak.
With the world championships coming up in less than three months, McIntosh has chosen to test herself in some less familiar events this week. That means no 200m butterfly, 200m medley or 400m medley — the events she won at the Olympics. But she did enter yesterday's 400m freestyle (her silver medal in Paris), setting up a showdown with Ledecky in last night's final.
Ledecky won it, passing McIntosh on the final lap to clock in at three minutes, 56.81 seconds — the second-best 400m freestyle of her career and just 0.35 of a second off the time that won her the gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics. McIntosh was the runner-up in 3:58.28 — more than two seconds slower than her career best, which came at the Canadian Olympic trials in 2023 and set a world record that has since been broken by Ariarne Titmus of Australia. Titmus, who topped the podium in Paris above McIntosh and Ledecky, is not competing in this meet.
Tonight, McIntosh will see how she measures up in the 200m backstroke final. She raced this event for the first time internationally in December at the short-course world championships in Budapest, where she took silver behind Olympic runner-up Regan Smith of the United States. Smith had the best time in this morning's qualifying heats, followed by McIntosh. Olympic champion Kaylee McKeown of Australia is not competing.
On Saturday, McIntosh will race two more events against an American star. She'll face Douglass, the reigning Olympic champ, in the 200m breaststroke and Gretchen Walsh, the world-record holder and Olympic silver medallist, in the 100m butterfly.
Other Canadians competing this weekend include three-time backstroke world champion and five-time Olympic medallist Kylie Masse and double Olympic bronze medallist Ilya Kharun. Here are the startlists and results.
Track and field: Andre De Grasse makes his Grand Slam debut
For the first and only time this season, the upstart Grand Slam Track and the established Diamond League are holding meets at the same time. The second stop on the four-event Slam tour takes place tonight through Sunday in Miami, while the Diamond League's second event happens Saturday near Shanghai.
The more attractive meet for Canadian fans is in Miami, where the seven-time Olympic medallist De Grasse will compete in the 100m and 200m as part of the men's short sprints group while Olympic silver medallist and reigning world champion Marco Arop runs his signature 800m and the 1,500m in the men's short distance division. Jerome Blake, part of De Grasse's Olympic gold-winning 4x100m relay team last summer in Paris, is also in the men's short sprints, while Canadian Olympian Lucia Stafford lines up in the women's short distance.
Under Grand Slam Track's novel format, athletes race twice over the course of a three-day meet, in two different but similar events. They earn points based on where they finish in each race, and whoever has the most points at the end of the weekend wins their group and the top prize of $100,000 US.
At the inaugural Slam last month in Jamaica, Arop won the 800m and placed sixth out of eight in the 1,500m — a distance he'd raced just twice before in his career — to finish second in the men's short distance. Group winner Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya, who beat Arop for the 800m gold at the Paris Olympics, is not competing this week. But Arop will once again face Americans Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse and Great Britain's Josh Kerr — the entire 1,500m podium from Paris. The 1,500 goes Friday at 5:51 p.m., and the 800 on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. ET.
De Grasse and Blake are making their Grand Slam debuts. Their rivals in the men's short sprints include American star Kenny Bednarek, the back-to-back Olympic 200m silver medallist who won the group in Jamaica. Two-time Olympic 100m medallist and former world champ Fred Kerley dropped out today after he was arrested following an altercation at a local hotel. The 100m race is on Saturday at 6:53 p.m. ET and the 200 goes Sunday at 5:21 p.m. ET to close out the meet.
Here's the full schedule and startlists for Miami, and here's more on De Grasse's Slam debut from CBC Sports' Justin Piercy. You can watch the entire meet live on CBC Gem and CBCSports.ca — Friday and Saturday from 5-8 p.m. ET and Sunday 3-6 p.m. ET.
The only Canadian competing in the Diamond League meet is shot putter Sarah Mitton. The back-to-back indoor world champion finished a disappointing fifth last week in Xiamen, China, where Dutchwoman Jessica Schilder won and two-time reigning outdoor world champ Chase Jackson of the United States was the runner-up. Mitton will face them again on Saturday.
Other stars in action include reigning Olympic champions Mondo Duplantis of Sweden (men's pole vault), Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine (women's high jump) and Quincy Hall of the U.S. (men's 400m), and three-time men's 400m hurdles world champ Karsten Warholm of Norway. The men's 100m features Olympic silver medallist Kishane Thompson of Jamaica and Botswana's Letsile Tebogo, who won 200m gold in Paris.
Watch the Diamond League meet live on CBC Gem and CBCSports.ca on Saturday from 7-9 a.m. ET. Here's the full schedule and startlists.
Rugby sevens: Canadian women play for the world title
The international rugby sevens season culminates this weekend in Los Angeles, where the top eight women's and men's teams will compete for their global SVNS series title while other countries try to position themselves for promotion to the top league.
Coming off their surprising Olympic silver last summer in Paris, the Canadian women's team placed fourth on the SVNS tour after taking bronze at the final two stops of the regular season. That earned them a spot in this weekend's world championship tournament in L.A., where they'll face No. 5 Japan, No. 8 Great Britain and top-ranked New Zealand (the team that beat them for Olympic gold) in the group stage on Saturday. The knockout rounds are on Sunday.
Earlier this week, rugby's world governing body announced changes to the SVNS series format for next season. For each gender, the eight teams who qualified for the world championships will compete in Division One. The top four finishers from a qualifying tournament also taking place in L.A. this weekend will play in Division Two, along with two teams who make their way up through regional competition and a global qualifier. The eight Division One teams and the top four from Division Two will play in next year's world championship.
The Canadian men's team is playing on the qualifying side this weekend. They finished third in the Challenger Series after being relegated out of the current 12-team top tier last year. | | |  | Summer McIntosh is racing outside her comfort zone at this week's star-studded swim meet in Florida. (Denes Erdos/Associated Press)
| | | Quickly…
| | | Some other things to know:
1. A strange Canadian curling drought lives on.
The world's top producer of elite curlers has somehow never won the mixed doubles world championship, which has been around since 2008. And the gold-less streak will now reach 18 years after Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant lost 7-5 to Estonia in the first round of the playoffs today in Fredericton, N.B., eliminating them from medal contention.
It's the fifth straight time that Canada has missed the podium. The closest calls since Peterman and Gallant took silver in 2019 came when the star-studded pairings of Kerri Einarson and Brad Gushue and Jennifer Jones and Brett Gallant lost the bronze game in 2021 and '23, respectively.
Peterman and Gallant at least accomplished one of their goals in Fredericton. In advancing to the playoffs, the married couple secured their spot in next year's Olympics, which they provisionally earned by winning the Canadian trials in January.
Estonia plays Olympic champion Italy in the semifinals later today while Australia faces Scotland. The final is Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
2. The Oilers and Leafs are into the second round. Can the Jets follow?
Six of the eight series in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs are now over after Toronto put down scrappy Ottawa in six last night while Edmonton knocked out Los Angeles for the fourth straight year. The Leafs will face Stanley Cup champion Florida in the next round while the Oilers meet Vegas, which took out Minnesota in six last night.
Winnipeg can advance with a win at St. Louis tonight at 8 p.m. ET, but the Presidents' Trophy winners got blown out in both of their road games so far and will be without star forward Mark Scheifele for Game 6 after a couple of hard hits knocked him out of Wednesday's 5-3 home win. On the plus side for the Jets, injured forward Nikolaj Ehlers is expected to make his first appearance of the playoffs. Game 7 would be Sunday back in Winnipeg.
The winner of the Jets-Blues series will face whoever takes Game 7 between Colorado and Dallas on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET. The other second-round matchup pits Eastern Conference top seed Washington vs. Carolina.
In other NHL news, the New York Rangers hired Mike Sullivan as their new head coach. Sullivan was fired by Pittsburgh on Monday after a decade with the Penguins that included back-to-back Stanley Cup wins in 2016 and '17.
3. The PWHL playoff race comes down to the final day.
Three teams remain in the hunt for the final two post-season berths while the top seed is still up for grabs as the regular season wraps up on Saturday with a trio of games.
League-leading Montreal and second-place Toronto have clinched playoff spots, but the Victoire's three-point lead is the equivalent of just one regulation win. So they'll have their eye on the Sceptres' noon ET game against Ottawa.
That matchup is even bigger for the Charge, who are clinging to the fourth and final playoff spot — just one point ahead of reigning Walter Cup champion Minnesota and two back of third-place Boston. Those two teams play each other at 1 p.m. ET, followed by the 2 p.m. ET season finale between Montreal and last-place New York, the only team eliminated from playoff contention.
For more on the last-day scenarios, read this piece by CBC Sports' Karissa Donkin.
4. Gregg Popovich is stepping away from coaching.
The Basketball Hall of Famer announced today that he'll no longer coach the San Antonio Spurs after after suffering a stroke in November. Popovich, 76, will remain with the team as its president of basketball operations, a title he already held. Mitch Johnson, who served as interim head coach while Popovich was absent, will take over on a permanent basis.
Popovich first joined the Spurs as an assistant coach in 1988 and took over the head job in 1996 when, as GM, he fired Bob Hill. His timing was perfect as San Antonio won the draft lottery at the end of that season and took Tim Duncan, who led the team to five NBA titles while winning three Finals MVP awards and a pair of regular-season MVPs. Along the way, Popovich won three Coach of the Year awards (tied with Pat Riley and Don Nelson for the most ever) and racked up a record 1,422 regular-season victories.
Famously gruff with reporters (especially sideline TV interviewers), Popovich has also been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump during both of Trump's Presidential terms. Here's more on Pop's coaching career.
Two of the NBA's second-round playoff matchups are now set after New York eliminated Detroit last night to set up a date with defending champion Boston, beginning Monday. The other East matchup sees top-seeded Cleveland take on Indiana, starting Sunday.
In the West, Golden State can advance to face Minnesota with a win over Houston tonight. If not, the Warriors and Rockets will go to a Game 7 on Sunday.
Game 7 between the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver is on Saturday night. The winner faces top-ranked Oklahoma City, so we might see MVP favourite Shai-Gilgeous Alexander go head-to-head with fellow Canadian star Jamal Murray of the Nuggets in the next round. | | | That's it for today. Talk to you later.
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