Canadians go after gold at Commonwealth Games

GOLD COAST, Australia, April 11, 2018 –Canada will battle Australia for the beach volleyball women’s and men’s gold medals at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games on Thursday at Queen Elizabeth Park, Coolangatta.

Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan will play Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Atacho del Solar for the women’s top place while Sam Schachter and Sam Pedlow will battle Damien Schumann and Christopher McHugh for the men’s gold.

Humana-Paredes and Pavan advanced to the final contest after they won 2-0 (21-7, 21-12) against Mariota Angelopoulou ans Manolina Konstantinou of Cyprus while compatriots Schachter and Pedlow also won in straights sets, 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) against New Zealand’s Ben and Sam O’Dea. 

"It feels awesome. We've been working for this for a long time,” Humana-Paredes said. “It's going to put beach volleyball on the map on the world stage. We're ambassadors for this sport.”

“We've been here for three weeks now, we had high expectations coming into this tournament,” Pedlow said. “We faced some adversity and had a few sets throughout the tournament that got us battle tested for a team like New Zealand.”

Schumann and McHugh advanced after their victory against England’s Jake Sheaf and Chris Gregory 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) shile Clancy and Astacio survived a tough semifinal match against Vanuatu’s Linline Matuatu and Miller Pata 2-1 (21-19, 16-21, 15-9).