Women’s Oly success energizing

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This article was published 29/07/2021 (1504 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you believe TV viewers at home are being galvanized by the exploits of Canadian women at the Tokyo Olympics, members of Team Canada are feeling the good vibes, too.

Just ask veteran Canadian water polo athlete Shae La Roche.

“We really liked watching the women’s (silver-medal-winning 4×100-metre freestyle) relay,” said the 28-year-old Winnipeg product by telephone from Tokyo Thursday. “Penny (Oleksiak) just getting in there and killing it at the end — that’s pretty inspiring. Just seeing any of them…

“We have a shared meeting room with the Canadians, and they have a wall up there with all the athletes with their medals and we were looking at the wall yesterday and we’re like, ‘Wow, it’s all women on that wall right now, which is also really inspiring.’ “

La Roche and her teammates have reason to feel good about themselves, too.

After a pair of narrow losses to Spain and Australia to open the preliminary round in Tokyo, Canada thumped South Africa 21-1 on Wednesday. La Roche, a seven-year veteran of the national team, scored twice in the rout.

Drubbing the African champs was expected but La Roche was impressed with the efficiency of the Canadian effort.

“South Africa is a team that just haven’t been very present internationally and they don’t get many games and they’re not as big of a federation as us, so we kind of expected that and based on their scores with other teams it wasn’t much of a surprise for us,” said La Roche. “I’m still really happy with how we performed — only letting them score one goal. We showed up and did our jobs.”

Entering Friday’s play, Canada was tied with the Netherlands for third in Group A. Those countries will close out the preliminary round with a head-to-head battle Sunday.

The top four teams will advance to playoffs so a spot in the quarterfinals is all but assured. But beating the Netherlands would have a major impact who the Canadians would face.

“Yes, because it will decide who we play but in the end any team we cross over to from the other side is a really good team,” said La Roche. “They differ on personnel and how they play but regardless, our cross is going to be really, really difficult so I think it’s important that we play as well as we can and do our jobs and of course a win is going to raise our spirits and we’re going to feel better about it.”

Canada and the Netherlands last met at the 2019 world championships with the Dutch eking out a one-goal victory.

Despite the pandemic-forced restrictions on movements in and around the athletes village, La Roche said their Japanese hosts have done a superb job.

The food, she said, is top notch.

“I’m pretty impressed,” she said. “I really like Asian food I’ve been eating a lot of curries every day and there’s always like a lot of good options. I mean, definitely after three weeks I’m sure it’ll be enough of eating in the cafeteria but I’m amazed at the amount of good food they produce.”

The infamous cardboard beds in the athletes’ rooms are getting a bad rap.

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“It’s cool,” said La Roche. “I really liked the sustainability measure of it. I’m pretty impressed with it.”

During the pandemic Games, interactions with other athletes, even Canadians, is strictly limited.

“You pass them in the hallways and elevators and a little bit outside and I think Canadians we’re pretty quick to talk to each other,” said La Roche. “But other than that, we don’t interact much with other sports or with other countries.

“The cafeteria still has everybody but there’s measures in place. There’s dividers at each table so you have a glass divider in front of beside you and you wash it down and everything. It’s definitely not a normal Games.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @sawa14