The City of Burnaby, B.C. quickly found another way to honour hometown hero Christine Sinclair.
The pride of Burnaby and the Canadian Women's National Soccer Team stunned Sweden 1-1 (3-2) in penalties to win the first gold medal for women's soccer in Canadian history at the Tokyo Olympics.
By 2 p.m. on Friday, August 6 – the day of the gold-medal performance - the city’s workshop had finished making a giant gold medal and hung it on the side of the Kensington Avenue community centre that is now named after Sinclair.
The medal had already been mostly fabricated ahead of time and then painted gold after the big win, said Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley, adding that the idea was hatched right after Canada qualified for the gold medal game.
“Coming into this Olympic tournament, Christine Sinclair was widely regarded as the greatest women’s soccer player in history. With this result, there is no doubt,” Hurley said in a news release after the game.
"Christine not only serves as the leader on her team – she is a wonderful role model and ambassador for Burnaby on the world’s stage, and we were all so proud to see her and the rest of Team Canada enjoy so much success at the 2020 Olympic Games.”
Sinclair has donned the maple leaf more than 300 times, starting most of those matches.
Sinclair is widely considered one of the top women’s soccer players in the world. She led Team Canada to win back-to-back bronze medals at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Sinclair holds the record for most goals in international play (both women’s and men’s soccer) with 187, and has 304 international caps (games played at the international level), ranking her fourth of all-time.
- With files from Jess Balzer
