The Canadian women won their first game of the Olympics, against a team they spied on. But no amount of victory, nor suspension of coaches, can erase the shame
Canada needed a win. Any win.
The gloom surrounded the Canadians as they took the field Thursday against New Zealand in their opening game of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Étienne. There was no head coach as Bev Priestman sat out the game after the drone scandal broke. Lombardi — a performance analyst for Canada — and Surrey’s Jasmine Mander, an assistant coach, also weren’t present, having been sent home for their roles in the disgrace.
Maybe that moment explains why Canada, No. 8 in the world, felt the need to spy on a team 20 places below them in the rankings. Or maybe not.
But Cloe Lacasse and Evelyne Viens scored for Canada to give them the win. The group was flustered, but they finished when it mattered.
As a victory, however, it rings hollow; the reverberations and fallout from the scandal will linger. And the taint is far deeper than we initially knew.
On Thursday afternoon, Priestman was suspended by Canada Soccer for the rest of the Games after the association discovered that the drone use wasn’t a one-off.
“Over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In light of these new revelations, Canada Soccer has made the decision to suspend Women’s National Soccer Team head coach, Bev Priestman for the remainder of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and until the completion of our recently announced independent external review,” Canada Soccer CEO and general secretary Kevin Blue said in a statement.
Mander’s ship was sunk when text message correspondence between her and Lombardi proved she knew he was watching the Kiwis — though didn’t prove that he was using a drone — something he’d also done in the days previous. Westhead said TSN has seen text messages of a women’s national team coach discussing even more drone footage of their adversaries practices before games against Trinidad, Costa Rica and South Korea in 2022.
FIFA’s disciplinary committee has opened an inquiry, which surely will go into a turbocharged mode with the raft of damning reports coming out this week. Even the defence of “everyone else is doing it” hold no water.
Did Lombardi’s illicit footage affected the game plan for either team? It’s hard to say. And we’ll never have an answer.
“It’s been tough on the group,” New Zealand interim head coach Michael Mayne said after the game.
He said it’s hard to not look at the result and wonder “what may have been.”
Canada has enjoyed a white-cloaked reputation on the world stage for decades. We’re the good guys. The winter country that punches above its weight in the summer games.
This is worse than Ben Johnson’s run in Seoul. He was the best sprinter, but the worst doper at those 1988 Games.
The Canadian women weren’t fighting against those on an even playing field, they were cheating versus a team that shouldn’t be able to compete with them on a normal day. Nobody loves Goliath, especially when he’s flying his DJI Mini Pro to see what kind of sling David might have.
Canada has two more games in the group stage; France on Sunday, and Colombia the following Wednesday. By then, our country’s fate has already been sealed: we’re cheaters.
The victims here — at least the ones who weren’t spied upon — are the players of the women’s team. This was supposed to be another moment of glory for the team and country, another trip to the podium after making it there the last three Olympic Games.