Canada had a big weekend in winter Olympic sports

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With the 2022-23 international season now underway in a wide variety of winter Olympic and Paralympic sports, Canadian athletes capitalized on some of the many opportunities to win medals over the past three days. Here are the highlights:

Canadians won 14 medals at the Four Continents Speed Skating Championships in Quebec City. The competition at this event isn't the strongest. It excludes European skaters, and some eligible standouts opted to sit this one out to rest for the upcoming World Cups in Calgary, including Canadians Isabelle Weidemann and Ivanie Blondin. Despite/because of all that, Canada topped the medal standings with seven gold and 14 total (South Korea was next at four and 12). 2022 Olympic medallists Laurent Dubreuil and Valérie Maltais led the way with three gold medals apiece. Dubreuil won the men's 500m and 1,000m and had a hand in Canada's team sprint victory, while Maltais took the women's 3,000m and mass start and contributed to a team pursuit win. Read more about the final day of competition and watch highlights here.

Olympic alpine medallist Jack Crawford reached his first World Cup downhill podium. Crawford's surprise bronze in the Olympic men's combined event last winter (just days after he missed the downhill podium by an eyelash) made him the only Canadian to win an alpine medal at either of the past two Winter Games. On Saturday at Colorado's Beaver Creek, the 25-year-old placed third in the men's downhill for his first-ever World Cup podium in that discipline. It was just the second World Cup medal of any kind for Crawford, who earned a super-G silver last season. Norway's Aleksander Aamodt Kilde won Saturday's downhill and Sunday's super-G to sweep the Beaver Creek events. At Alberta's Lake Louise, 2018 Olympic women's champion Sofia Goggia of Italy won both downhills before Switzerland's Corinne Suter, who reached the podium in each of those, took gold in Sunday's super-G. Marie-Michèle Gagnon's eighth-place finish in the super-G was the best result by a Canadian this weekend at Lake Louise, which is in danger of being removed from the World Cup calendar.

Mikaël Kingsbury won the moguls season opener. The 30-year-old Canadian's victory Saturday in Finland extended his World Cup moguls wins record to 51. If you include the non-Olympic dual moguls, Kingsbury now has 75 World Cup victories (also a record). Finishing second Saturday was Japan's Ikuma Horishima, who last season gave Kingsbury a rare challenge for the World Cup title before the Canadian prevailed by a tiny margin for his 10th career moguls crystal globe (yes, that's a record too). Walter Wallberg, the young Swede who upset Kingsbury to win gold at the Beijing Olympics last winter, did not compete as he continues to recover from a broken hand. Read more about Kingsbury's latest win and watch highlights here. 

Canada got silver at the Para Hockey Cup. Saturday's 5-1 loss to the United States in Nova Scotia was Canada's sixth in a row to the mighty Americans in the final of this event. The U.S. also beat Canada in the gold-medal game at the Beijing Paralympics last winter to capture its fourth straight title there. Canadian captain Tyler McGregor led the Para Hockey Cup in goals and finished second to American Declan Farmer in points. Read more about the final and watch highlights here.

Other Canadian medal wins: At the World Cup aerials season opener in Finland, Marion Thénault took silver in the women's event while Lewis Irving claimed bronze in the men's. Thénault and Irving were part of the Canadian squad that took bronze in the mixed team event at the Olympics last winter. Éliot Grondin, who captured silver in men's snowboard cross and bronze in the mixed team event at the Beijing Olympics, grabbed bronze in his World Cup season opener in France. And, as mentioned in Friday's newsletter, Cynthia Appiah took bronze in a World Cup women's monobob race in Utah.