Melissa Humana-Paredes, right, and Brandie Wilkerson stand on the podium with their silver medals following the beach volleyball final at the Summer Olympics, Saturday, August 10, 2024 in Paris.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
An Olympic silver medal at the Paris Olympics weighs just over 500 grams. But certain medals have the potential to be a little bit heavier and more symbolic.
On Friday, Canadian beach volleyball duo Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson claimed silver against Brazil, and it was one of those medals that carried ample weight for them.
The medal was Canada’s 24th in Paris, which ties the mark set three years ago in Tokyo for the country’s most in a non-boycotted Summer Games.
But even before they got on the podium Friday night in Paris, the two players spoke often about what a medal would mean to beach volleyball in Canada.
It wouldn’t merely be a piece of hardware for themselves, or a history-making medal. It would be the kind of moment that could potentially transform the sport in Canada, and draw more people to volleyball – especially young women and young women of colour.
“One of our goals together, just starting as a team, but even just starting playing in the sport, was to be role models for the next generation. And also to change the narrative in Canada specifically. It’s predominantly a winter-sport country, but we are really freaking good at beach volleyball as well,” Humana-Paredes said afterward.
“It needs to keep growing domestically. And we hope that we can show lots of young girls, especially young girls of colour, that you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it,” she said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all for how to play this sport and for who can play the sport. So if you felt inspired, if you liked watching us play, if you like the sport, just give it a try.”
That is the weight Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson put on themselves heading into the final in Paris, against Brazil, the world’s top-ranked team.
It was the first time Canada had played for a gold medal in the sport.
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Since beach volleyball was introduced at the Olympics in 1996, Canada has only claimed one medal in the sand, when John Child and Mark Heese won a bronze in the men’s tournament, on a squad coached by Paredes’s father Hernán Humaña.
Humaña remembers returning from those Atlanta Summer Games and placing one of the players’ two bronze medals around the neck of his three-year-old daughter.
But because only the players got medals, which is how Humaña says it should be, the family has never had one to call their own. Now they do.
“Now there will be a medal in the family, too,” said Humaña, a former member of the Chilean national team who fled to Canada as a political refugee in the 1970s with his wife, Myriam Paredes, a ballet dancer.
Now a professor at York University, he has retired from coaching but takes special pride in what the Canadian duo have accomplished.
Other than the bronze in ‘96, Canada hasn’t won another medal in volleyball at the Summer Games, either on hardwood or sand. By comparison, the gold was Brazil’s eighth Olympic medal in women’s beach volleyball.
“In 1996, it was the first time beach volleyball was at the Olympics and we ended up winning the bronze and we have been milking that cow since 1996 in Canada,” he said with a laugh. “Because it has been unfortunately the only medal that we have won until now. So it’s quite historic,” Humaña said.
“That medal opened up possibilities and opportunities and resources. And so that created a big shift in beach volleyball. It was a big impact,” he said.
In Paris, the Canadians supplied ample drama on their run to the finals.
Ranked seventh in the world, Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson dodged close calls, engineered unlikely comebacks, and managed to beat the United States, Spain, and Switzerland, among others.
But on Friday, they faced the world’s top-ranked duo of Ana Patricia Silva Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa at Eiffel Tower Stadium.
Brazil is one of two countries considered to be the originators of beach volleyball, with the U.S. the other that lays claims to its origins.
Canada got off to a blistering start in the first set, opening up an 8-2 lead. But Brazil would not yield, coming back and eventually emerging with a 26-24 win.
In the second set, the Canadians took control back. At the midpoint, Canada claimed an 11-10 lead and started to build on it with timely blocks and shrewd serves. Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson pushed the score to 21-12, and forced a third-set tiebreaker.
But the last set saw Brazil reassert itself, opening up a 10-5 lead with each side making explosive plays at the net.
The match grew tense when Wilkerson exuberantly celebrated a big play in the direction of her parents in the stands. The Brazilians thought it was directed at them, and the two sides started verbally sparring through the net.
But beach volleyball is also a sport with a sense of humour. As things got heated, John Lennon’s Imagine played over the loudspeaker, which the players laughed about later.
“They played the song which was hilarious, and I think it was just a moment for everyone to just take a breath and reset,” Wilkerson said.
Brazil never relinquished the lead. With Canada facing match point at 14-10, a Brazil spike glanced off Wilkerson’s attempted block and bounced out, securing the 2-1 win and leaving Canada with the silver.
“It just comes down to the little details and the opportunities at the right times,” Wilkerson said.
Earlier in the day, Switzerland beat Australia 2-0 for the bronze medal.
The road to the silver was a long one for Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson.
The two began playing together as indoor teammates on the York University Lions. They were opponents in beach volleyball for years after that, but decided to team up in late 2022 with an eye to a medal in Paris.
Both made it to the round of eight at the Tokyo Olympics with different partners, and figured together they could potentially go farther than any Canadian women’s team had if they formed a duo.
In Tokyo, Humana-Paredes, 32, made it to the quarter-finals with then-partner Sarah Pavan, but were defeated by Australia. Wilkerson, 28, also made it to the quarter-finals with Heather Bansley, but lost to Latvia.
“When we got together, we wanted to make history together,” Humana-Paredes said this week.
On Friday, they managed something no team before them has been able to accomplish: the first silver in beach volleyball for Canada, and the first medal for the women’s program.
“It’s an honour to make history with Melissa,” Wilkerson said. “We’re very proud of the work we’ve done, we’re proud of the amount of people who have started this journey for us. Honestly, there are so many athletes that paved the way ahead of us; there’s teammates we’ve had, lessons to be learned, the support systems. It’s been a big team effort.”