Peterborough Blogs
Cody Caldwell and Team Canada Bring Home 5th Place in Wheelchair Rugby
/Peterborough’s Cody Caldwell and Team Canada beat France 57-49 on Saturday to finish in 5th place in Wheelchair Rugby at the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
Caldwell racked up 10 tries at the Tokyo Paralympics.
After losing their first two matches by less than a total of seven points to Great Britain and the United States, Team Canada bounced back with two consecutive wins to finish the tournament.
Caldwell logged 5:23 minutes of play time and scored one try.
Canada’s Michael Whitehead and Zac Madell were able to combine for 39 tries, making them the top scorers of their final game.
Heading into this tournament Team Canada had medal hopes. After sweeping away the competition in every Paralympic qualification match, things were looking up for the team.
Team Canada was put in group B, which consisted of two of the top three teams in the tournament, USA and Great Britain.
“They hate it, it was obvious, we were in the toughest pool, we know we should be vying for a medal,” said coach Dave Willsie in a press conference. “We took it upon ourselves, we have a lot of men in that change room, they wanted to make a statement in this last game, and that’s what we did. We stuck it to France. It wasn’t even close, and we are elite, even though we don’t have a medal to show for it.”
Canada’s next international competition is the American Zonals, taking place in Colombia this December.
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Cody Caldwell and Team Canada Earns First Wheelchair Rugby Win at Tokyo Paralympics
/Peterborough’s Cody Caldwell and Team Canada defeated New Zealand in wheelchair rugby at the Tokyo 2021 Paralympics, 51-36 to improve to a 1-2 record on Friday.
Cody Caldwell (pictured) has scored nine tries in the wheelchair rugby round-robin. File Photo.
The win has earned them a fifth-place match against France this Saturday.
Canada outscored New Zealand after all four quarters and never lost the lead.
Caldwell was a starter and logged 8:23 minutes of game time. He scored four tries to help bring Canada to their first tournament win.
Zak Madell led Canada with 12 tries through only 12:37 minutes of gameplay; Barney Koneferenisi led New Zealand with 18 tries.
Canada was eliminated from playoff contention after two consecutive losses to Great Britain and the United States. Both losses were competitive matches as Canada only lost by a combined score of seven points.
Team Canada Wheelchair Rugby will wrap up its Paralympic journey competing against France for fifth place on Saturday at 7:00 a.m. EST.
To live stream Saturday’s game click here.
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Local Athlete Lands in Tokyo For the 2021 Paralympics To Bring Back Gold
/It was a long plane ride from Canada to Japan but Paralympian Cody Caldwell has arrived safely on Wednesday to compete in the Tokyo 2021 Paralympic Games.
File Photo.
Caldwell confirmed on his Instagram that he made it safely to the Paralympic village on the Harumi waterfront district of Tokyo after leaving Canada on Tuesday.
“Late night arrival to the village but we made it,” he said on an Instagram post.
He is representing Team Canada in wheelchair rugby in his second Paralympics. His last appearance in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil earned a fourth-place finish in 2016.
The Paralympics was originally scheduled for 2020 but was postponed one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Caldwell is not the only family member on the trip as his father serves as the “jack of all trades” for the team.
“It’s a huge honour to be able to go with him and he’s pretty much drove us to hockey growing up and he’s drove us to any sport that we wanted to play,” explained Caldwell. “Now he gets to experience it from inside the ropes. It’ll be really cool for him and myself.”
File Photo.
The team has three scheduled round-robin games in Group B. The United States, Great Britain and New Zealand are the three other teams in Canada’s bracket.
The top two teams will advance to the semifinals to play against the other top countries in Group A —which consists of Australia, Denmark, France and Japan —in a single-elimination playoff round.
File Photo.
The following is Team Canada’s wheelchair rugby schedule:
Aug. 25 vs. Great Britain
Aug. 26 vs. United States
Aug. 27 vs. New Zealand
