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Here’s what Canadian fans can follow over the next few days:
Curling: Einarson goes for gold at women’s world championship in Calgary
Skip Kerri Einarson’s Canadian team defeated South Korea 8-3 this morning to improve its record to 8-1, keeping pace with Switzerland atop the preliminary standings. The Swiss, skipped by young Xenia Schwaller, handed Canada its only loss on Tuesday.
Einarson, playing with a sprained ring finger on her throwing hand, faces Norway (2-7) tonight at 9 p.m. ET before closing out round-robin play on Friday against Australia (1-8) and Japan, which sits alone in third place at 6-2. The Koreans and Sweden are tied for fourth at 6-3, followed by China and Turkey at 5-4.
The top six in the 13-team round robin qualify for the playoffs, which begin Saturday. A bye goes to the No. 1 and 2 seeds, while the others pair off in the first elimination round on Saturday at noon ET. The winners of those games advance to the semifinals on Saturday at 6 p.m. ET. The final goes Sunday at 5 p.m. ET, and there’s a bronze-medal game for the semifinal losers in the morning.
Einarson is seeking her first world title and the third in a row for Canada. Rachel Homan’s team won the last two but were unable to compete in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts this year because the tournament took place right before the Olympics, where they won bronze. In Homan’s absence, Einarson won her fifth Canadian title. She’s never reached the final at the world championship, but she took bronze in 2022 and ’23.
Track and field: Mitton leads Canada into indoor world championships
Eighteen Canadians are slated to compete from Friday to Sunday in Poland. The headliner is shot putter Sarah Mitton, who will try for her third consecutive indoor world title. She placed fourth at the outdoor world championships last year after taking silver in 2023 and finishing 12th at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Other Canadians to watch include sprinters Christopher Morales Williams (men’s 400m) and Audrey Leduc (women’s 60m). Morales Williams, 21, clocked the fastest indoor 400m time in history while running for the University of Georgia in 2024, though it did not count as a world record due to a technicality involving the starting blocks. Leduc, 27, is the Canadian record holder in the outdoor 100m and 200m. At the Paris Olympics, Leduc and Morales Williams were eliminated in the semifinals in each of their events.
International stars in action include Olympic women’s 100m champion Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia and Olympic men’s 100m silver medallist Kishane Thompson of Jamaica, who will both run the 60m; Olympic men’s 1,500m champion Cole Hocker of the United States (3,000m); Olympic women’s 800m champ Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain; and pole vault superstar Mondo Duplantis of Sweden, who has won back-to-back Olympic golds, three consecutive outdoor world championships, three straight indoor world titles, and last week broke the world record for the 15th time.
You can watch the indoor worlds live on CBC Gem and the CBC Sports website starting Friday at 5 a.m. ET. Here’s the full schedule.
Ski cross: Howden eyes World Cup title on home snow
Canada’s Reece Howden has rebounded nicely from his crushing quarterfinal exit at the Olympics in Italy last month, winning two of his last three starts and finishing fourth in the other to widen his lead atop the men’s World Cup standings. The 27-year-old from Chilliwack, B.C., could wrap up his second consecutive Crystal Globe and fourth of his career this weekend near Collingwood, Ont., the penultimate stop on the World Cup circuit.
The top Canadian on the women’s side is Hannah Schmidt, who ranks seventh in the World Cup standings. Former Olympic and world champion Marielle Thompson is 12th.
Qualifying takes place today and Friday for the medal rounds on Saturday and Sunday. You can watch those live on CBC Gem and the CBC Sports website at 11 a.m. ET and 11:30 a.m. ET, respectively.
Other stuff to know about:
* Canadian freestyle skier Elena Gaskell took silver in today’s World Cup women’s slopestyle event in France for her second medal of the season. She earned a bronze in January and finished 23rd in the slopestyle at last month’s Olympics.
* Canada’s Naomi Urness had the fifth-best score in qualifying for Friday’s World Cup women’s big air final at the same venue in France. She finished sixth in the Olympic big air. Watch live at 2 p.m. ET on CBC Gem and the CBC Sports website.
* The final event of the inaugural Snow League season is taking place in Switzerland. Canada’s Brendan Mackay, who won Olympic bronze last month in the halfpipe, leads the men’s freestyle ski standings. The top Canadian snowboarder is Brooke D’Hondt, who is eighth in the women’s chase through three events. Watch live on Friday and Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET on CBC Sports’ streaming platforms.
* The alpine skiing season wraps up with the World Cup finals in Lillehammer, Norway, beginning with the men’s and women’s downhills on Saturday and the super-Gs on Sunday. The top 25 in each discipline are invited, and Canada’s qualifiers for this weekend’s events are Cam Alexander (15th in the men’s downhill, 23rd in super-G), Jack Crawford (21st in men’s super-G) and Val Grenier (25th in women’s super-G). The slalom and giant slalom races are on Tuesday and Wednesday. For start times, see the full CBC Sports streaming schedule.
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