THE OLYMPICS ARE HERE! 🥇🥈🥉 Opening Ceremony, Podium Potentials + MORE!
Olympics Edition
In partnership with CBC Sports, The 4% Rising is your guide to finding and watching women's sports online and on TV. Subscribe now to receive this guide each week.
🚨 Throughout the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games, The 4% Rising will be published more frequently. Expect the newsletter to pop into your inbox on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next few weeks! 🚨
Mixed Doubles Curling 🥌
The Beijing Winter Olympics are kicking off with curling – and although the women's teams won’t be in action until next week, mixed doubles start TODAY! The Round Robin will start Wednesday, with Canada’s team facing Great Britain.
Canada will then take on Norway on Thursday morning - and Switzerland Thursday night, before seeing China, Sweden and the United States on Friday. Canada hopes to defend their gold medal in this event - with John Morris and Rachel Homan selected to compete.
They will have their work cut out for them - as their first match is against defending world champions Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat of Great Britain. But of course, we have faith that our Canadians will defend their gold medal - both Homan and Morris have competed at the Games before and Morris is looking to stand on the Olympic podium for a third time.
Mixed Doubles Curling begins Wednesday at 8:05pm ET on CBC Sports!
Hockey Preliminaries 🏒
The Canadian women’s hockey team will start their quest to reclaim gold at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday evening against Switzerland. This marks the beginning the preliminary round of the tournament. Canada is in Group A along with Finland, the Russian Olympic Committee, Switzerland and the United States.
Group B consists of Japan, Sweden, China, Czech Republic and Denmark. The teams who make it out of the preliminary round will advance to the quarterfinals.
Canada won silver at the 2018 Games where they lost the gold medal game to the United States in a shootout. BUT the team’s hopes are high as they anticipate the support of Canadians back home during their run.
These Olympics will look a little different in hockey, as the NHL has withdrawn from the games. No such ban has been placed on the women’s athletes who play in other leagues.
I am hoping for another year of SUPERSTARDOM for women's hockey! Let’s see if the Canadians get back on top of the podium!
Team Canada plays Team Switzerland Wednesday at 11:10pm ET on CBC Sports!
Figure Skating ⛸ Ice Dance Team Event
Figure skating kicks off with the team ice dance qualifications on Thursday night!
This may not seem like the main ticket, but consider it a warmup for some of the most show stopping events of the entire Olympics. This first event can also serve as a sneak peek at some of the top individual medal contenders.
Canada is one of ten entries in the event but the competition in Beijing will be tough. Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier will have to look out for Russia and the U.S. as top contenders for the gold medal in the team event. BUT as world bronze medalists, I’m expecting great things from Gilles and Poirier.
Get comfy… this is just the beginning! Tune in to the Beijing 2022 Team Ice Dance Qualifications, Thursday at 10:35pm ET on CBC Sports!
Freestyle Skiing 🎿 Moguls
It’s official, the Olympics have begun and so has freestyle skiing! We’re kicking off this Games’ freestyle events with the moguls qualifications on Thursday morning.
You might be asking yourself, what IS freestyle skiing? Well… freestyle skiing features six events. ➡️ Aerials, big air, halfpipe, moguls, ski cross and slopestyle. In addition to the debut of big air, these Olympics will also include a mixed team event in aerials for the first time!
Each moguls run is judged by a panel of judges as skiers traverse a sloped course covered in mounds of snow. Sixty percent of the score is judged on turns, 20 percent on air and 20 percent on speed (each run is timed).
After winning the moguls event in PyeongChang, France’s Perrine Laffont will contend to take home another gold medal. She claimed the 2021 world championship and sits in second place in the World Cup rankings behind Australia’s Jakara Anthony.
In terms of Canadians, I have my eye on Chloé Dufour-Lapointe and Justine Dufour-Lapointe. These sisters shared the women’s moguls podium in Sochi eight years ago and I’m excited to see them compete against each other again (gotta love some sibling rivalry 😉).
Check out the women’s moguls qualifications, Thursday morning at 5am ET on CBC Sports!
👀 Must-see Event: Opening Ceremony (Friday at 6:30 a.m. EST)
It's FINALLY time!
There's no better way to kick off Beijing 2022 than with the Opening Ceremony and you won't want to miss it. I am pumped for the music, songs, dancing and fireworks to help make us feel part of the Games and the culture of China. Beijing’s National Stadium will stage an Olympic Opening Ceremony once again and it's been nearly 14 years since their amazing 2008 Summer Olympic Games ceremonies, so I am PUMPED to see what's in store this time.
The best part of the ceremony is getting to see the ATHLETES! 🙌 One of the most exciting moments is witnessing each country's flag-bearer, and Canada has finally announced who will have the honour. Charles Hamelin (short track speed skater) and Marie-Philip Poulin (women’s hockey captain), will be leading the way at the ceremony. In case you needed a little reminder, Poulin scored BOTH goals in Canada's 2-0 win over the U.S. to win gold at Vancouver 2010.
One third of the world tuned in to watch the $100-million opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. About 15,000 performers participated in the production. In contrast to the summer games extravaganza, Beijing 2022 will be held under strict COVID-19 restrictions with no foreign spectators in the stadium.
Whether you're a fan of winter sports or not, set your alarms because you won't want to miss this spectacle! 🎆Catch live coverage of the Beijing 2022 Opening Ceremony on Friday, February 4 starting 6:30 am EST on CBC Sports.
Canada Watch 🇨🇦
OHHHHH CANADA! Sending 215 athletes and the most-ever women to a Winter Games. The Canadian team is projected to win 23 medals - six gold, six silver and 11 bronze, putting the country fourth in the medal table. Of the 215 athletes, 106 will compete in women’s events.
No matter how the medal table shakes out, once the action starts there will be no shortage of Canadian hopes and talent to watch. Especially in the freestyle skiing and snowboarding mountain venue 200km northwest of Beijing and the speedskating, curling and hockey rink in the capital city.
Every athlete representing Canada at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games is making our country proud. Keep your eye out for Canadian legends like Kim Boutin in short track speed skating, Valérie Maltais, Ivanie Blondin and Isabelle Weidman in long track speed skating team pursuit, Cassie Sharpe in halfpipe skiing and Jennifer Jones in curling. Plus many, many, many more outstanding Canadian athletes.
There’s a HUGE time difference for Canadian sports fans to grapple with so make sure you do what you can to tune in to all the events! You absolutely do not want to miss this! AND REMEMBER… CBC Sports is the place to go for all of your Olympic coverage.
TV Guide
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Only 4% of national airtime is devoted to women’s sports. At The 4% our objective is to promote what, when, and where to watch women’s sports to help raise awareness and grow the audience for women’s sports on TV.
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