Qualifying-tournament rosters don’t have to be the same rosters a national team takes to the Olympic Games. sa国际传媒 will almost certainly add Jamal Murray and Andrew Wiggins for Paris 2024 in men’s basketball. So too could the Canadian women’s rugby sevens roster vary, even if slightly, from the 12-member squad that qualified the nation for the Paris Olympics through the North American and Caribbean tournament held at Starlight Stadium in August.
Canadian coach Jack Hanratty will cast a wide net over the next eight months as he looks to fill the 12-player Olympic roster, beginning with the 2023 Pan Am Games this month in Santiago, Chile. Hanratty has made seven changes from the Olympic qualifying roster with veterans Charity Williams, a last holdover from the 2016 Rio Olympics bronze-medallist squad, and Caroline Crossley of Victoria drawing back in after lengthy absences from the national sevens team.
“This is my first time back in a long time and I’m super excited by it,” said Crossley, returning for the first time since she played on sa国际传媒’s gold-medallist team in the 2019 Lima Pan Am Games.
“It’s a great opportunity,” the Castaway Wanderers club member told the sa国际传媒.
“There’s a real energy in the Athletes Village of a multi-sport Games with so many athletes from different sports, which is not what you are used to in just your own sport.”
Also drawing in is rising Carissa Norsten from the University of Victoria Vikes, who was the U Sports rookie of the year last season. The holdovers from the successful Olympic qualifying team from August at Starlight Stadium are Breanne Nicholas, Julia Greenshields, Alysha Corrigan, Chloe Daniels and Asia Hogan-Rochester.
“I was with the team when we won the last Pan Am Games in Lima in 2019, and I am really looking forward to attending another Pan Am Games in Chile this time,” Nicholas said in a statement.
“We will be taking our excitement from qualifying for the Olympics at the end of summer to these Pan Am Games, and this tournament will be a great opportunity for us to build leading up to this year’s SVNS Series and Olympics.”
sa国际传媒 placed second in the men’s North American and Caribbean Olympic qualifier at Starlight Stadium and will use the Pan Am Games to prepare for the last-chance world qualifier next year for the 12th and final berth into Paris 2024.
Named to the Canadian squad for the Santiago Games are Victoria players Lachlan Kratz, Jack Carson, Matt Percillier and Jake Thiel. They can take a lot away from the experience of Canadian coach Sean White of Victoria, who as a player won gold in the 2011 Guadalajara and 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games.
“Despite coming off a tough summer, we’re now given an opportunity to see how we rebound as a group,” White in a statement.
“This tournament will provide many of the same challenges and obstacles we will see on the SVNS Series and ultimately puts us one step closer to our end goal in July [last-chance Olympic qualifier].”
The Canadian rugby teams in Santiago will feature five Olympians in Nicholas, Greenshields, Williams, Thiel and Phil Berna. The 2023 Pan Am Games run Oct. 20 to Nov. 5 in the Chilean capital. Rugby sevens will take place Nov. 3-4 at the Estadio Municipal de La Pintana.
The rugby players will join the more than 60 Island or Island-based athletes who will compete for sa国际传媒 in the 2023 Santiago Pan Am Games. Island athletes won 17 medals in the 2019 Lima Pan Am Games, 20 medals, including 13 golds.
