Burnaby’s Felicia Voss-Shafiq and the Canadian women’s sitting volleyball team will battle Brazil for bronze at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo this weekend.
Canada will be looking to avenge an earlier defeat.
During their first match of the tournament, the Canadians won their first set against Brazil 25-21 but lost the next two 26-24 and 25-20. Canada came back in the fourth, winning 29-27, but lost the final set 17-15.
“It was a tough loss,” Voss-Shafiq told the NOW. “We can definitely do better, but we’re proud of being able to battle it out with Brazil and push them to a fifth set, which we haven’t been able to do before.”
Canada’s goal going into the tournament was to earn a spot in a medal game, she said, and the team achieved that by beating Italy in four sets (25-16, 25-14, 15-25 and 25-18) and Japan in three (25-19, 25-15, 25-20) to make it into the semifinals against China.
They fell to China in straight sets (25-18, 25-20, 25-15) Friday.
They now hit the court for the bronze medal match at Makuhari Messe, a convention centre outside of Tokyo, Saturday at 12:30 a.m. (PT).
Regardless of the outcome, it will be the best-ever finish for Canada in sitting volleyball, after a seventh place finish for the women's team in Rio in 2016.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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