Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes get silver in beach volleyball at 2024 Olympics

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PARIS — Consider the narrative changed.

Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson fell just short in a wild 2-1 loss (26-24, 12-21, 15-10) to the Brazilian duo of Ana Patricia and Duda on Friday in the Olympic women’s beach volleyball final at Eiffel Tower Stadium. But their silver medal remains the best result in the country’s history in the sport, and a reminder that you don’t have to grow up closer to the equator to succeed in the sand.

“We’re normally a winter sport country,” Melissa said, “but we are fricking good at beach volleyball, as well. I’m tired of ‘Don’t you live in igloo?’ questions.

“We play beach volleyball.”

The Canadian partners chalk up their impressive run as the result of good old-fashioned grit, hard work and belief in each other. They came out on fire, building an early 8-2 lead in the first set. But they fumbled it away, then fought off three set points, missed two of their own and finally let it slip away.

“Some missed opportunities on side-out,” Melissa said. “They put some service pressure on and I didn’t respond. We had some missed opportunities to win the set again and (struck out) defensively. I think lessons learned. We never backed down.

“You see how we responded in the second set (a dominant win) was how the first set should have gone.”

It was a microcosm of their entire tournament. The Canadians took the hard road by losing two of their first three matches. Then, they made it through the lucky loser round, beat an American favourite and staved off match point in the semifinal against the rolling Swiss bronze-medal duo of Hueberli-Brunner.

But they couldn’t find a fifth straight victory to finish it off against the unbeaten Brazilians. This was the first of eight Olympic women’s finals that needed more than the minimum two sets to be decided.

The heat boiled over in the tie-breaking third set, too.

The two blockers Brandie and Ana Patricia got into a verbal clash at the net that Wilkerson chalked up to a miscommunication. The house DJ tried to calm the situation by playing John Lennon’s Imagine peace anthem.

“After a big play, I saw my family in the back and I was just cheering at them,” Brandie said. “She (Ana Patricia) thought I was cheering at her. But I was looking past her. She kind of came back at me and I was like what are you doing? She said you started with me. How are we doing this? Aren’t we playing a respectful game? Yes, but this has nothing to do with you.

“After the game, we talked and it was literally all love and respect.”

But at the time, it was compelling to watch.

“Just competition, high-energy intensity,” Brandie said. “No one’s backing down. It came from wanting it so badly. Things had to come out and then they played the song and it was hilarious.”

It’s part of what Brandie called the insanity of playing in the final with the two best teams in the world fighting for the same little piece of gold. She was the best blocker in the tournament and she described Melissa as the best defender in the game.

The Canadians fell in the quarterfinals with different partners three years ago at Tokyo. A year later, the former York University indoor teammates finally linked up and made their debut together in February 2023.

That’s 18 months to build the necessary chemistry and the result was magical — right until they ran out of time here. Their shaky-looking start here bloomed into Canada’s greatest triumph on the most beautiful stage at these Summer Games.

“It was an emotional roller-coaster,” Melissa said. “It was hard on our team and really forced us to have deep, hard conversations early on. For me personally, it showed me I don’t have to be playing my best volleyball to make it to an Olympic final. You can still find a way. We showed a lot of people what’s possible and what pure heart and grit means.

“If you’re just going to fight to the end, that’s what will help win you games.”

The Brazilian women had not won the gold since Sandra Pires and Jackie Silva at the original tournament at Atlanta in 1996. They had four silver medals in the first seven Olympic finals, so this was their time again.

The Atlanta Games was the same event where Canada won its first beach medal — a bronze on the men’s side from John Child and Mark Heese. Humana-Paredes’ father Hernan was their coach.

Melissa was three years old at the time. She heard her dad’s stories and finally helped a Canadian team get to a final.

A couple of Canucks will one day get to the top of the podium. It might even be them, if they play this way until 2028 in Los Angeles.

rpyette@postmedia.com