Jasmine Glaesser’s trophy case got a little more crowded last weekend.
The Coquitlam cyclist won a gold medal with Team Canada in the women’s pursuit competition and took home a silver in the women’s omnium at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto.
Glaesser and teammates Allison Beveridge, Laura Brown and Kirsti Lay topped their heat in the qualification race, finishing less than a second faster than Team U.S.A. However, the team placed second in the first round, but defeated Cuba in their heat, giving Canada a strong position for the final race on Friday.
With the competition down to eight teams, Glaesser and company executed a perfect race in the finals, defeating their closest competition — the Americans — by close to seven seconds.
“So proud of the whole team leaving it all out on the boards yesterday,” she tweeted after the race.
But despite the strong effort during the team event, Glaesser did not appear tired when she competed in the women’s omnium event the next day.
She finished the race with 44 points, good enough for second place, behind American Sarah Hammer and ahead of Mexico’s Lizbeth Salazar.
Glaesser was not the only Tri-City athlete to pick up a medal at the Pan Am Games last week.
Port Coquitlam’s Constantine Kudaba and the Canadian water polo team grabbed a bronze medal after defeating Argentina at the Pan American Games on Wednesday.
Kudaba, who scored one in the 16-8 victory, tweeted that the team is now heading to Kazan, Russia, to compete in the Federation Internationale de Natation world championships.
Team Canada’s men’s water polo squad got off to a bumpy start at the Pan Am Games.
The club fell to Brazil 11-9 in the first match, but bounced back in the second match two days later with a 16-2 victory over Venezuela, before beating Mexico 19-9 last Saturday.
That set the stage for a showdown against the eventual gold medal winners, Team U.S.A.
Despite a strong effort from Kudaba and his teammates, Canada fell to the Americans 9-8 in a heartbreaking loss Monday night.
However, Canada was able to pull off the bronze medal win Wednesday, adding to the country’s medal total of 98.
This is not the first time Kudaba has had success in international competition.
He and his team walked away with a silver medal at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara and he won a bronze in Rio in 2007.
