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TORONTO – It took just five days of competition at the 2015 Pan American Games for Canada to eclipse its gold-medal total from four years ago.
Canadian athletes won eight more gold medals on Wednesday, giving the host nation 33 overall.
Canada won 30 gold medals total over 16 days at the 2011 Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.
GALLERY: Images from Day 5 competition at Pan Am Games
The United States took the lead in the overall medal standings with 85 medals to Canada’s 83, which includes a disputed swimming silver in the men’s 4×200 relay.
Canada still leads in the gold-medal race, five ahead of the U.S.
Brazil was third in the medal standings with 54, while Cuba and Colombia were third in the gold-medal standings at 16 apiece.
Halifax gymnast Ellie Black and Canada’s rowing and swimming teams contributed multiple gold medals Wednesday, while Calgary shooter Lynda Kiejko won her second gold of the Games.
READ MORE: Canada’s Ellie Black wins 4th Pan Am medal, this time gold in balance beam
Black won gold in the women’s balance-beam competition and the floor exercise, giving her five medals in five events.
Black nailed her balance-beam routine with a score of 15.050 at the highest difficulty level. After her floor exercise routine that got her a score of 14.400, she blew kisses to the crowd at Ricoh Coliseum as fans roared and waved Canadian flags.
Earlier in the Games, the 19-year-old won gold in the all-around, bronze in the vault and helped Canada earn silver in the team event.
“This was more than I expected, this has been incredible,” Black said. “The support here has been amazing. I was so proud of our team coming in silver, and individually in my finals I was not expecting half of this. So thank you to everyone.”
Kevin Lytwyn of Stoney Creek, Ont., won silver in the men’s horizontal bar with a score of 15.475 and Victoria Woo of Brossard, Que., won bronze on the women’s balance beam at 13.650.
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Canada earned a medal in four-of-five races, including three gold, on the final day of rowing competition at the Royal Canadian Henley course in St. Catharines, Ont. The men’s lightweight coxless fours, the men’s eight and the women’s quadruple sculls all topped the podium, while Rob Gibson of Kingston, Ont., added a silver in men’s single sculls.
The men’s eights led from start to finish, finishing three seconds ahead of Argentina with a time of six minutes 7.01 seconds.
The eights crew included all four members of the gold-medal-winning men’s coxless four from earlier in the meet.
“We all agreed there’s no way we could stand on that podium and listen to any other anthem with our fans, family and friends there,” said Conlin McCabe of Brockville, Ont. “The whole regatta was going to be a failure to us if we didn’t win the eights, even though we had won the fours and quad already.”
McCabe, Victoria’s Mike Evans, Will Dean of Kelowna, B.C., Julien Bahain of Sherbrooke, Que., Martin Barakso of Nanaimo, B.C., Tim Schrijver of Thedford, Ont., Kai Langerfeld of Parksville, B.C., Will Crothers of Kingston, and coxswain Jacob Koudys from nearby Fenwick, Ont., got the eights win for Canada.
Pan Am Games Day 5: Canadian rowers on golden waters
Kate Goodfellow of Perth, Ont., Kerry Shaffer of nearby Welland, Ont., Carling Zeeman of Cambridge, Ont., and Antje Von Seydlitz of Smithers, B.C., won the quad sculls in 7:07.63, more than eight seconds ahead of the U.S., which won silver in 7:16.26.
“The wind was pretty strong today so the start and first half of the race was pretty rough and I think it just came down to who handled it the best,” said Goodfellow.
Maxwell Lattimer and Brendan Hodge, both from South Delta, B.C., Nicolas Pratt of Kingston, and Eric Woelfl from St. Catharines, Ont., won the men’s lightweight coxless fours.
“This is our boat for the whole summer so it’s another stepping stone in how we’re forming as a crew,” said Pratt.
In swimming, Kierra Smith and Hilary Caldwell led Canada to a pair of one-two finishes as the national swimming team took seven medals.
Smith, from Kelowna, B.C., won gold in the 200-metre women’s breaststroke in a Pan Am record time of two minutes 24.38 seconds while Toronto’s Martha McCabe finished 0.13 seconds back to take silver.
“I love racing people that I know,” Smith said. “I just feel way better about it. You know them in the ready room and they make you more comfortable.”
Caldwell, from White Rock B.C., set a Pan Am record in the 200 backstroke, winning in 2:08.22. Dominique Bouchard of North Bay, Ont., was second in 2:09.74.
“We have a really strong women’s team,” Caldwell said. “It’s fun to be able to light it up in front of a home crowd that’s for sure.”
Emily Overholt of West Vancouver, B.C., won silver in the women’s 200 freestyle, while Edmonton’s Richard Funk added silver in the men’s 200 breaststroke.
The men’s 800-metre freestyle relay team comprised of Victoria’s Jeremy Bagshaw and Ryan Cochrane, Stefan Milosevic of Burnaby, B.C., and Alec Page of Cortes Island, B.C., was upgraded to silver from bronze when the United States was disqualified.
The Americans appealed the result. Canada’s silver will stand until the appeal is heard on Thursday.
Canada has 13 medals through two days of swimming competition.
Kiejko swept the women’s pistol events with a win in the women’s 25-metres.
The Calgary native beat Sandra Uptagrafft 7-3 in the final round to earn Canada’s third shooting gold of the Games.
Kiejko also won gold in the women’s 10-metre air pistol on Sunday.
“I don’t think words can actually describe how excited and just ecstatic I am right now,” she said. “I was coming into this event with it not being my forte. I have no words. I am over the moon right now.”
In tennis, Philip Bester of North Vancouver, B.C., and Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski settled for silver in mixed doubles tennis after losing to Argentina’s Maria Irigoyen and Guido Andreozzi in the final. Earlier, Dabrowski teamed with Carol Zhao of Richmond Hill, Ont., for a women’s doubles semifinal win over Irigoyen and Paula Ormaechea.
George Kobaladze of Montreal won Canada’s second weightlifting medal of the Games, taking silver in the men’s 105 kg and over category.
After a heartbreaking loss to the United States in Monday’s semifinals, Canada’s men’s water polo team won the bronze medal Wednesday with a 16-8 win over Argentina.
Canada’s softball team continued to roll, improving to 4-0 with a 7-2 win over the Dominican Republic. It was a different story for Canada’s women’s soccer team. The defending Pan Am champions fell 2-0 to Costa Rica.
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