Kia Nurse chosen as Canada's flag-bearer for Pan Am closing ceremony
Point guard led team to Canada's 1st ever basketball gold medal
Kia Nurse has been chosen as Canada's flag-bearer for the closing ceremony of the Pan Am Games on Sunday night.
The ceremony will be broadcast live on CBC TV starting with the pre-show at 7 p.m. ET, streamed to mobile devices on the CBC Sports app, and on desktop on the CBC Sports Pan Am website.
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The point guard led the women's basketball team to a gold medal — a first for Canada in international competition.
"I'm super ecstatic, and I wish (my whole team) could be here," Nurse said. "All 12 of us would definitely attempt to hold the flag together and wave. But I'm so pumped for this and really excited and fortunate to have the opportunity."
Nurse, a native of Hamilton, Ont., scored 33 points in Canada's 81-73 victory over the United States in the final, averaged 13.6 points per game in the tournament and played a team-high 128 minutes.
At Sunday morning's news conference, she thanked Canadian fans who "stepped up to the plate."
"Our crowd was our sixth man, and we couldn't have done it without them," she said. "It's so great to see the support and the attention the women's side is getting, because we really have been on the rise, we have been performing extremely well the last couple of years, with a lot of historic finishes, and to have this one under our belt on home soil, it was incredible."
The Canadian Olympic Committee said that Nurse "was chosen for her fighting spirit and for how she represents the great success of Canada's women and team sports."
The Canadian women went undefeated through the Pan Am Games tournament, recording wins over Venezuela, Argentina and Cuba, before knocking off Brazil in the semifinal before their gold-medal win.
They now head to Edmonton, where they open the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament on Aug. 9.
Nurse,19, will be entering her sophomore season at the University of Connecticut where she helped the Huskies capture their third-straight NCAA championship in 2015.
With files from Lori Ewing/The Canadian Press
With files from The Canadian Press