Two Langley-area athletes are vying for bronze in Paris this weekend.
Felicia Voss-Shafiq, 44 of Willowbrook, and Danielle Ellis, 32 of Clayton Heights, are both long-standing local members of Team Canada's women's sitting volleyball team.
READ MORE: Langley volleyball Paralympian heads to Paris for 3rd Games
They and their teammates made it to the semifinals after winning two of their three games in pool play. On Aug. 29, they beat Slovenia 3-0. on Aug. 31, they lost to Brazil 1-3. Then, on Sept. 2, they defeated Rwanda 3-0.
It earned them a chance to take on the undefeated Team China on Thursday, Sept. 5, hoping to secure a spot in the finals.
But it was not to be, falling 3-0 and being left to fight it out this weekend for the bronze medal. They will go up against Brazil again, this time on Saturday, while Team China and Team USA will compete for the gold.
"Obviously, the outcome 3-0 is not what we wanted," Canada's head coach Nicole Ban said.
"But even from the beginning, we battled. We knew it was going to be a really difficult game, and I just talked to the athletes about focusing on one point at a time. I thought they did that every single point, and that's really hard to do," she shared.
"It's easy to get caught up in what just happened and the error that just happened, but we just moved on to what was happening next, and I'm really, really proud of them for that. We battled. We did what we could. It wasn't enough, but I'm super proud of them," added the coach.
Albertan Sarah Melenka led the way for Canada with 12 points, with four coming off of blocks.
Ellis and Heidi Peters each had 11 points. Ellis is tied in second in the entire tournament for points with 60 and Melenka is fifth with 48.
Jolan Wong is currently the top-ranked libero in the Games with a 1.54 average per set in-play rate with just seven errors in the tournament so far, the lowest of any libero with at least 50 attempts.
"Our goal was to go out there and put everything that we had on the court," outside hitter Julie Kozun said.
“I think we were scratching the surface of our best volleyball, but we weren't quite playing our best volleyball. We weren't able to serve receive as well today, which didn't able to us to play our best systems.
"We can run a faster ball than we played today, but China is a tough competitor, so it's nice to play a high-level volleyball with a high-level team, but I think we had more in the tank, and we just weren't able to execute on it today,” Kozun added.
Canada has a men's and a women's team playing sitting volleyball in the Paralympics in Paris this month.
The teams are composed of athletes with lower limb impairments, according to the Canadian Paralympic Committee.
In 2011, Voss-Shafiq contracted pneumonia, resulting in blood poisoning which sent her body into a coma. Two weeks later, she woke up with her hands and feet bandaged. The doctors were hopeful she would make a full recovery. Slowly, her hands recovered, with the exception of a few nerves in her fingertips. The doctors waited a full year for her legs before the decision was made to do a double amputation below the knee.
As for Ellis, she lost her right leg below the knee due to cancer shortly after birth. She discovered sitting volleyball at a Trinity Western volleyball camp in 2007, a pivotal moment that introduced her to Paralympic sports.
Apart from players being seated during competition, the other major differences are a smaller court and lower net. Under the rules players must always keep contact with the floor at all times except when making a defensive play in the back or front zones.
• Stay tuned for updates on the team's quest at www.langleyadvancetimes.com
