Canada and USA in same wheelchair rugby pool for Paralympic Games

Arch-rivals Canada and USA will be in the same pool in wheelchair rugby action this summer at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

The tournament draw was held Wednesday morning in Sheffield, England. Pool B will include three of the top-five teams in the world. The Americans are ranked second, the Canadians fifth, and Great Britain fourth. New Zealand at number-10 internationally is the fourth team in the pool.

At the 2016 Paralympic Games, USA won the bronze medal and Canada was fourth.
The pool A teams are the gold and silver medallists from the Rio Games four years ago, Australia and Japan, currently number-one and three internationally along with France (#6) and Denmark (#7).

“The stage is now set for what will be an exciting and very competitive Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games,” said Canada’s head coach Patrick Côté in a release from Wheelchair Rugby Canada. “No game will be easy, that’s for sure. 

“It is good to know who we will be facing in preliminaries and I expect it will bring even more focus in our training, as we continue to prepare to be at our best at the end of August.”

Canada earned a berth for Tokyo when it won a Games qualifier in February 2020 in Richmond  B.C.

The wheelchair rugby competition will be held August 25-29 at the Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan, with the full schedule to be announced at a later date. The Paralympic Games run from August 24 – September 5.