Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson win beach volleyball silver at Paris 2024

Team Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson have captured silver in beach volleyball at Paris 2024.

The duo fell in three sets to top-ranked Ana Patrícia Silva Ramos and Eduarda “Duda” Santos Lisboa of Brazil in Friday night’s gold medal match. Canada fought off three Brazilian set points – and had a couple of their own – before falling 26-24 in the opening set. The Canadians stormed back in the second, winning 21-12, but dropped the third and deciding set, 15-10.

The medal is Canada’s first in women’s beach volleyball at an Olympic Games and the country’s second ever in the sport. John Child and Mark Heese won bronze in men’s beach volleyball at Atlanta 1996, which was the sport’s Olympic debut.

It’s the second Olympic appearance for both Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson – but their first as a duo. The two formed a partnership in October 2022 and made their debut as a pairing on the Beach Pro Tour in February 2023. They have found quick success together with this Olympic medal joining the silver they won at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games.

Reaching the gold medal match was anything but easy for the duo. The two finished 1-2 in the preliminary phase, forcing them to play in a lucky loser match in order to reach the next round.

After beating Czechia in two sets in the lucky loser round, Canada pulled off a major upset in the round of 16, eliminating the No. 2 ranked team in the world – Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth of the United States – to qualify for the quarterfinals. After defeating Spain in the quarters, Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson had to go up against Tanja Hueberli and Nina Brunner of Switzerland in the semifinals, a team that hadn’t dropped a single set in Paris.

The Swiss won the first set, 21-14, only to have the Canadians storm back and take a close second set, 22-20. Canada then took the first-to-15 third set, 15-12, to qualify for the gold medal match. That game, in a way, was a reflection of the team’s entire tournament.

“There’s so many emotions and there’s so much that went behind this – in that game alone, let alone the last two weeks of this tournament,” Humana-Paredes said after defeating the Swiss on Thursday. “In that game alone, it was a roller coaster and it really tested us and pushed us. And so there’s a huge sense of relief. I think you could see I was just running around. I was just full of energy that needed to get let out.

“I think there’s a lot of pride in what we’ve accomplished and what we’ve done over the last two weeks. We’ve experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and we still have one more day, one more game and we’re not losing sight of that, but it feels really great to secure a medal for Canada.”

Earlier in the day, Hueberli and Brunner won the bronze medal, defeating Australia’s Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy in two sets.