Although the Olympic opening ceremonies aren’t until Friday, today is the first day of Olympic competition. The Canadian women’s soccer team will be the first Canadian showing at the Games when they compete against Japan this afternoon. With Canada’s leading goal scorer Christine Sinclair as team captain, the women stand a chance to beat out the favoured Japanese team.
Sinclair has been playing soccer since the age of four, and has been on the Canadian national team since she was 18. As a national team member, she has been named the Canadian Soccer Player of the year seven times, and has been nominated for FIFA’s World Player of the Year five times.
In the spirit of the quirky athlete rituals mentioned in the current issue of Chill, Sinclair has a ritual of her own: she has to put everything on the left first. Another more well-known and YouTube-documented ritual she has with her teammates is to sing their victory song The Power of Love by Celine Dion. A few days ago, Dion herself wished the women’s team good luck during the Games.
Today’s game will prove challenging, as Japan is third on the FIFA World Ranking, but Canada isn’t too far behind, ranked seventh. Christine is looking forward to playing Japan, and at just 29 years old, she is the third leading goal-scorer of all time with 137 career goals, behind Mia Hamm (158) and Abby Wambach (138).
We’re looking forward to watching the game because it sounds like it’ll be a tough one for the women, but considering it’s the first game for both teams, it really could be anyone’s game.
