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Canada’s women’s soccer team is gearing up to defend its gold medal at the Olympics in Paris, but some major drama is already brewing after a staffer was caught using a drone to spy on New Zealand’s squad ahead of their upcoming matchup.
In 2021, Canada’s women’s soccer team headed to Tokyo hoping to improve on the back-to-back bronze medals they managed to secure in London and Rio and managed to do exactly that by staging an impressive run that ended with them topping Sweden in a shootout in the gold medal game.
As a result, expectations are pretty high heading into the 2024 Summer Olympics, but things took a very interesting turn thanks to what unfolded in France on Monday.
Canada and New Zealand will kick off the women’s tournament when they face off at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in the city of Saint-Etienne on Thursday in a game where the team from the Great White North is listed as the heavy favorite (New Zealand failed to exit the group stage in Japan, and its quarterfinals appearance in London remains its best Olympics result to date).
According to the National Post, we have a fresh new SpyGate on our hands after New Zealand spotted a drone hovering over its practice session on Monday before alerting police, who were able to track down the operator who was identified as a “non-accredited” member of Canada’s support staff.
New Zealand understandably decided to file a complaint with the integrity committee operated by the IOC, and while they haven’t taken any official action as of this writing, the Canadian Olympic Committee swiftly dismissed the staffer in question (as well as assistant coach Jasmine Mander) after discovering a drone had also been used for similar purposes last week.
Canada head coach Bev Priestman also issued a self-imposed punishment by announcing she won’t be on the sidelines when her team faces off against New Zealand and also issued a formal apology.
Canadian women's soccer team coach Bev Priestman will not coach against New Zealand in Canada's first Olympic soccer game on Thursday after an investigation discovered there were two incidents where drones were flown over New Zealand's women's Olympic team training sessions.
Two… pic.twitter.com/4Y1GmAWTNR— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) July 24, 2024
If this is any indication of what’s to come, we’re in for a very spicy Olympics.