Everything you need to know as Diamond League gets underway
Andre De Grasse, Aaron Brown set to run 200 in 1st meet of season
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The track to Tokyo is heating up
The Diamond League season begins in Gateshead, England on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET. You can watch all the action live on CBC-TV, CBCSports.ca and the CBC Sports app.
Here's everything you need to know as athletics ramp up ahead of Tokyo:
Gateshead is the first of seven pre-Olympic meets. Starting Sunday, meets are scattered across Europe for the next two months. Not every discipline is contested at each meet, and athletes generally pick and choose which ones they attend. In an Olympic year, Diamond League provides a chance for hopefuls to meet Olympic qualifying times, and for guaranteed Olympians to measure themselves against top competition. The circuit takes a one-month Olympic break before returning with events through September.
Canada's top sprint duo will race the 200. Andre De Grasse and Aaron Brown, ranked fourth and fifth worldwide, are both among a relatively strong field. Olympic favourite Noah Lyles won't race, so the Canadians' top competition may come from American Kenneth Bednarek, who shares De Grasse's personal best and national record of 19.80 seconds. Ecuador's Alex Quinonez and Great Britain's Adam Gemili should also be in the mix. Matt Hughes, scheduled to run the 3,000 steeplechase, is the only other Canadian entered in Gateshead. Brittany Crew, the national women's record holder in shot put, withdrew with a lower-body injury.
De Grasse is making his season debut in the discipline. The 2016 Olympic silver medallist in the 200 has yet to run the event in 2021. De Grasse, 26, could be primed for a massive summer, as the retirement of Usain Bolt and suspension of Christian Coleman leave the top of the 100 podium up for grabs. Known for his ability in big races, but tendency to start slow out of the gates, it's no wonder that De Grasse appears to have shifted his focus to the premiere Olympic race, running the 100 three times already. Gateshead, then, should present a good barometer for the Canadian in the event in which he typically succeeds more.
Brown remains a lingering threat. The 28-year-old owns a 19.95 personal best in the 200, and finished third (20.40) in the same race that Bednarek won last week in the Czech Republic. Like De Grasse, Brown also runs the 100, with an outside shot of cracking the podium if he can improve his starts. His early-season preparation has been more balanced between the two races, but Brown specializes in the 200, and he's waited five years to race the Olympic final after failing to qualify in Rio. With baby boy Kingsley born in January amid months of training through COVID-19 restrictions, Brown says he now understands better how to focus on the task at hand. Read more about Brown's journey in this piece by CBC Sports contributor Vivek Jacob.
De Grasse and Brown were both part of Canada's bronze-medal 4x100 relay team in Rio. However, the team has yet to qualify for Tokyo after skipping World Relays earlier this month.
The women's 100 could reset the outlook for Tokyo. Two-time Olympic gold medallist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, 34, fell to bronze amid injury in Rio. Her personal-best time of 10.72 was recorded nearly a decade ago now. She'll be contested by American Sha'Carri Richardson, a 21-year-old American whose personal best is only two hundredths of a second shy of Fraser-Pryce's and came just last month. A victory for Richardson in Gateshead could set the stage for the torch to be passed in Tokyo. Also in the field are former world champions Dina Asher-Smith of Great Britain and Natasha Morrison of Jamaica.
For more on the Gateshead meet, watch CBC Sports' Anastasia Bucsis and Perdita Felicien break down the field here:
Quickly...
John Tavares is out indefinitely with a concussion after a scary knee to the head. The Maple Leafs say their captain was discharged from the hospital and is resting at home after being carried off the ice on a stretcher during the first period of Toronto's Game 1 against Montreal last night. Auston Matthews told reporters after today's practice that Tavares texted the team following its 2-1 loss to tell them he was doing OK. With Tavares out, even more responsibility will now fall on Matthews' shoulders as the favoured Maple Leafs look to dig out of yet another playoff hole. Read more about Tavares' condition here and watch highlights from the Canadiens' win here.
Canada will officially compete in all three curling events at the Beijing Olympics. It was dicey at times for Brendan Bottcher in the men's tournament and Kerri Einarson in the women's, but Einarson and Brad Gushue took care of mixed doubles with relative ease today after beating the Czech Republic at worlds. Just because those curlers qualified Canada for the Olympics doesn't mean they're Olympians — national trials in all three events in November and December will determine who is headed to China. Einarson and Gushue will look for Canada's first mixed doubles championship this weekend. Read more about today's important win here.
Denis Shapovalov's second career ATP title is one win away. The Canadian dumped Pablo Cuevas in straight sets to reach the final of the Geneva Open, a 250-point clay-court tournament. Shapovalov, 15th in ATP rankings, will face No. 21 Casper Ruud in tomorrow's championship match. Regardless of that result, the success in Switzerland bodes well for Shapovalov ahead of the French Open. He also recently challenged clay king Rafael Nadal at the Italian Open, eventually losing a third-set tiebreaker after dropping two match points. Read more about Shapo's latest win here.
Latvia beat Canada in a hockey game. Sure, it's not the best Canadian team ever to compete at worlds (Connor Brown is arguably the best player), and the game was in Latvia, but still... woof. The Canadians didn't even manage a single goal in their tournament opener, losing 2-0. It's the first time Latvia has beaten Canada at the world championships in 13 meetings. Watch highlights from the historic result here.
Phil Mickelson stole the PGA Championship lead from Canadian Corey Conners. Lefty finished strong at Kiawah Island today with five birdies on his back nine to become the outright leader as of our publish time. That title belonged to Conners after play on Thursday, but the Listowel, Ont., native bogeyed five of his first six holes today to quickly relinquish his grip on the second major of the PGA season. A late recovery left Conners at two-under for the tournament, three back of Mickelson. Fellow Canadians Mackenzie Hughes and Adam Hadwin are both in danger of missing the cut. Check out the updated leaderboard here.
The NBA is often knocked for its predictability, but these playoffs promise to be anything but. After tonight's Warriors-Grizzlies game determines the eighth seed in the West, the real thing gets underway tomorrow. The betting favourite to win it all is the Brooklyn Nets, whose star trio of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving played all of eight games together. Next is the Los Angeles Lakers, the reigning champions who face an uphill climb to the Finals as the seventh seed. They'll square off against the Suns, who made the playoffs for the first time in 10 years after acquiring 'Point God' Chris Paul. Kawhi Leonard's Clippers and Giannis Antetokounmpo's Bucks both collapsed in the bubble last season. The Nuggets look stout behind MVP candidate Nikola Jokic, but 2020 playoff star Jamal Murray is out for the season. The Utah Jazz had the best record in the league, but may never have the best player in a series. Maybe this is the year Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid put it together for the 76ers. All of that is to say: while the 2021 Larry O'Brien Trophy likely winds up in the hands of one of those teams, others will undoubtedly face uncomfortably early exits.
And finally...
It's the biggest F1 race of the year. If you're like me, you've discovered the joy and intrigue of Formula One through the Netflix series Drive To Survive. Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix winds through the narrow streets of the city and is considered the most prestigious event on the calendar. Red Bull racer Max Verstappen is the slight favourite over Mercedes' all-time great Lewis Hamilton.
This weekend on CBC Sports
Hockey Night in Canada: Winnipeg and Edmonton continue their series with Game 2 tonight (9 p.m. ET) and Game 3 on Sunday (7:30 p.m. ET), while Toronto and Montreal resume their matchup on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET. You can find those games on CBCSports.ca and CBC-TV. For the full playoff schedule including every series, click here.
Olympic Games Replay: Relive jaw-dropping Summer Olympics moments like Canadian Simon Whitfield's triathlon gold at Sydney 2000 and Michael Phelps' .01-second butterfly victory at Beijing 2008 on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on CBCSports.ca and CBC-TV.
You're up to speed. Enjoy the long weekend.
