News Release

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNB) - The women's beach volleyball team from Team Canada-New Brunswick finished fifth overall, defeating Congo 2-0 on Saturday during competitions at the 6th Games de La Francophonie in Beirut, Lebanon.

Cherie Campbell of Fredericton and Jill Blanchard of Saint John easily beat the Congo, 21-6, 21-18. Earlier in the morning, Canada-NB lost 2-0 (21-15, 21-14) to France and lost a chance to get into the medal round.

"This is our best standings ever at the Games, and I am very happy," said coach Alex O'Donnell. "The girls were more relaxed this afternoon and played better than in the morning. They learned a lot during the week of competitions."

Blanchard described the tournament as awesome.

"We were more relaxed this afternoon, and we decided to attack right from the beginning," she said. "Our strategy worked. The tournament was much more than what I had expected before coming here. The people were great, the competition was tight and this was a very beautiful site."

Campbell was happy with the outcome.

"We played much better this afternoon compared to this morning," she said. "We wanted to play better this afternoon and win."

Corey Akerley and Michael Waugh, both of Fredericton, duo lost 2-0 to Canada-Québec in the quarter-finals, 22-20 and 21-19.

"We did not play as planned against Québec," Akerley said after the game. "We could have beaten them and gone on for a medal. We did not finish our plays and did not control the ball well."

Waugh enjoyed the tournament even though he said, "I am not sure what went wrong today; we did not capitalize on our chances to score, and we could not come back from behind."

O'Donnell said the men's team demonstrated that it could compete with any of the teams present. He added that the players needed more international competitions to improve their chances.

Jocelyn Ruest of Edmundston finished fourth in the 20-km walk with a time of 1 hour, 47 minutes.

"I didn't like my time and my legs let go," Ruest said. "This is the first time that I had run a race on a 500-m course."

In the 3,000-m steeple race, Joël Bourgeois of Grande-Digue finished sixth with a time of 9:01.47.

"I am not happy with my slow time," said Bourgeois, who was participating in his third Games de La Francophonie. "It was a slow race for everybody. It was also out of season for all of us, and I had not raced for three months on a track. I felt in shape, and I can say I really appreciated these games, better than the others, because this is my last competition of the year. At the other two games, I had major competitions following my race."

Pierre-André Doucet of Moncton did not reach the medal round in the literature competition.

"I am happy with the judge's comments on my news essay," Doucet said. "I made them think with my modern text. They said they had a number of discussions on my essay, and that was my objective - to make them react."

On Sunday, Canada-NB was scheduled to be active in track and field. Allyson Howatt of Fredericton was to compete in the 200-m preliminaries, while Jean-Marc Doiron of Collette was to run in the 800-m preliminaries.