Scott, Schmidt,
van Landeghem Return
With Olympic Medals
By Scott Taylor, Photos courtesy Canadian Sport Centre Manitoba and Jeff Miller
Desiree Scott
Soccer star Desiree Scott would still
like to win an Olympic gold medal.
And that’s why the 29-year-old
international midfielder has not ruled
out a shot at the 2020 Olympics in
Tokyo.
This summer, the former University
of Manitoba Bisons star won her
second Olympic bronze medal as
Canada beat Brazil 2-1 in the thirdplace game at the Rio Olympics.
Meanwhile, another Winnipegger,
Sophie Schmidt, was also a big part
of Canada’s medal-winning soccer
performance in Rio while former
Manta Swim Club member, Chantal
10 / sportslife
van Landeghem, also won a bronze
medal as a member of Canada’s 4x100metre relay swim team.
With three bronze medals to brag
about, the 2016 Rio Games produced
a pretty nice haul for Manitoba, but it
was pretty easy to tell upon her arrival
at the James Richardson Airport in
Winnipeg, that Desiree was the darling
of an admiring city.
“It feels amazing. I’m always so
happy to come home, and it’s even
better with some hardware,” she said,
as she held up the medal for the TV
cameras.
“Canada’s a really good place for
soccer and I think people need to
watch out. I’m so proud of our team
and how well we played. We were very
close to winning a gold medal and I
think that still motivates me to keep
playing.”
The bronze-medal win came two
days after Canada was eliminated from
the gold medal game by Germany.
The Germans beat Canada 2-0 in the
semifinal. During round-robin group
play, Canada had beaten the Germans
2-1. Germany went on to beat Sweden
2-1 in the gold medal match.
These days, Scott plays with FC
Kansas City in the U.S.-based National