In fewer than two hours Sunday, Coquitlam's Brittany Rogers and the Canadian women's gymnastics team vaulted -- literally and figuratively -- to unprecedented heights at the London 2012 Olympics.
Canada not only advanced to Tuesday's team final for the first time ever in Olympic competition in a non-boycotted Games, it qualified two gymnasts, including Rogers, in the vault final and another in the individual all-around final.
Competing in the third of five subdivisions in the qualification round, the Canadian team ranked fourth in intermediate results and had to wait for the next two groupings to see if they made it into the top eight, ultimately snagging the eighth and last spot in the final.
Not a bad day's work the five gymnasts who have jelled into Canada's best-ever women's Olympic gymnastics team despite the absence of star Peng Peng Lee, who was knocked out of the Games with a knee injury in May."We kept fighting and never gave up, even when things didn't go well after our beam rotation," said the 19-year-old Rogers, who qualified seventh in the vault while teammate Ellie Black of Halifax earned the eighth and last spot in the event final, set for Aug. 5. "It really was all about the team."
Other members of the Canadian team are Sarnia's Dominique Pegg, who also qualified 18th for a spot in the Aug. 2 all-around final; and fellow-Ontarions Kristina Vaculik and Victoria Moors. In the team final, Canada will go up against powerhouse squads from the U.S., Russia, China, Romania, Great Britain, Japan and Italy.
By placing in the top eight to reach the vault final, both Rogers and Black, now count themselves among a handful of Canadian women gymnasts to qualify for an Olympic individual event final. Only two other Canadian women have made it to an Olympic event final -- Kelly Brown, who placed sixth on vault at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and Coquitlam's Kate Richardson, who was eighth in the women's floor final at the 2004 Games in Athens.
Coquitlam's Brittany Timko was part of the Canadian women's soccer team that scored a pivotal late goal to manage a 2-2 tie with Sweden on Tuesday to move on to the quarter-finals.
