{"id":859515,"date":"2026-08-15T22:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T22:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/859515\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T22:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T22:54:10","slug":"canadian-women-clinch-berth-in-la-2028-with-semifinal-win-at-flag-football-world-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/859515\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian women clinch berth in LA 2028 with semifinal win at flag football world championships"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n<p>The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian women&#8217;s flag football team is bound for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>Canada defeated Mexico 20-6 in an International Federation of American Football (IFAF) world championship semifinal Saturday in Duesseldorf, Germany.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am so proud of this team,&#8221; said Canadian women&#8217;s team head coach Rachel Lessard in a statement. &#8220;Qualifying for the 2028 Olympic Games is a reflection of the discipline, resilience and trust this team has built over the course of this process, and they&#8217;ve earned every bit of this opportunity at the 2026 IFAF Flag Football world championships.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Canadian flag football is on the rise, and we&#8217;re honoured to officially be able to help carry that momentum to the 2028 Olympic Games.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The top two countries in each of the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s world championships qualified for 2028 when flag football makes its Olympic debut.<\/p>\n<p>But if the United States, already qualified as host, reached either final, the top three finishers qualified for L.A.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian women will meet the U.S., which was a 27-21 semifinal winner over Britain, for the world title Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Mexico and Britain will battle for the remaining women&#8217;s Olympic berth in the bronze-medal game.<\/p>\n<p>WATCH | Best semifinal moments Canada vs Mexico:<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786834450_608_default.jpg\"  alt=\"\" class=\"thumbnail\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"video-item-title\">Canadian women&#8217;s flag football team books spot in LA28 Olympics with semifinal win at worlds<\/p>\n<p>Canada&#8217;s women&#8217;s flag football team advanced to the final of the the IFAF World Championship tournament in D\u00fcsseldorf, Germany on Saturday, with a 20-6 semifinal win over Mexico. With the victory, they also earned a spot in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Canada&#8217;s men fell 41-36 to Italy in Saturday&#8217;s semifinal, but still had a chance to punch an early Olympic ticket in Sunday&#8217;s bronze-medal match against Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. was a 42-40 winner over the Mexicans in the other semifinal, and faces Italy for men&#8217;s gold Sunday at the world championship.<\/p>\n<p>Countries can also qualify for Los Angeles via next year&#8217;s continental championships and a qualifying series the following year.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian men defeated American Samoa 24-14 and the women were 40-12 victors over Austria in Saturday&#8217;s quarterfinals.<\/p>\n<p>Canada&#8217;s women edged the U.S. 34-33 at the USA Football Summer Series on June 19.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is an incredible moment for our women&#8217;s flag football team and everyone who has supported them along the way,&#8221; said Eva Havaris, Football Canada&#8217;s chief executive officer. &#8220;This group worked incredibly hard for this moment, delivered an outstanding performance and it goes without saying that they&#8217;ve earned it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re thrilled to see them officially secure their place on the Olympic stage, and we can&#8217;t wait to see what they do in Los Angeles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sara Parker passed for 107 yards in Saturday&#8217;s semifinal. Silvia Contreras led Canada&#8217;s receivers with 38 yards on six catches, and also scored a touchdown.<\/p>\n<p>Caroline Moquin-Joubert scored a pair of touchdowns and Alexane Fournier also reached the end zone.<\/p>\n<p>James Drysdale compiled 76 yards on six catches and also scored a touchdown for Canada&#8217;s men in the semifinal loss. Jackson Tachinski and Antony Auclair also scored. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":["post-859515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}