Finally, Canada Wins Medals On Day 8

Finally! Canada won 3 medals: 1 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze

This article was taken from cbc.ca

Canada's medal drought came to an end on Day 8 of the Beijing Games, with Canadian athletes winning three medals on Saturday.

Wrestler Carol Huynh, a 27-year-old native of Hazelton, B.C., won Canada's first gold medal of the Games, winning the 48-kilogram freestyle weight class final over Japan's Chiharu Icho by a score of 4-0 and 2-1.

"This is unbelievable," she told CBC Sports following the medal ceremony. "I knew I wanted to go in with supreme confidence in my abilities, and not doubting myself one second. That's what I did, and I wrestled the match of my life, and it was awesome."

The men's rowing pair of Dave Calder, from Victoria, and Scott Frandsen, from Kelowna, B.C., started the day by winning Canada's first medal of the Olympics, claiming the silver on the water at Shunyi Olympic rowing park in Beijing.

"It was a tough race; we tried to ignore the fact that we haven't had a medal yet as a country, and just focus on our two [kilometres]," Calder told CBC Sports after the race.

"We can come off the water knowing we had a great race," said Frandsen.

Wrestler Tonya Verbeek won the second Olympic medal of her career and Canada's third of the day.

The Beamsville, Ont., native won bronze in the 55-kilogram weight class, beating Ida-Theres Nerell of Sweden by a score of 1-0, 1-0 in one of two bronze medal matches.

Verbeek, 31, won silver at the 2004 Athens Summer Games, the first to include women's freestyle wrestling.

She was smiling after the match, despite finishing one medal position below her 2004 Athens result. "I won a match to get the bronze and you're losing a match to get the silver," Verbeek said. "So it is a different feeling."

More medals for Canada could be on the way, as three Canadians advanced to women's and men's trampoline finals next week.