PARIS—Battling Canada brought the Stade de France Olympic party to a shuddering halt when they stunned France 19-14 on Monday to set up a women’s rugby sevens semi-final with Australia after Maddison Levi set an Olympic record as they beat Ireland 40-7.
In the other semi-final, New Zealand, who posted a record 55-5 victory over China, will play the United States after they fought back to beat Britain 17-7.
After the men won France’s first gold medal of the Games on Saturday, there was another expectant 67,000 crowd on site to roar the women’s team on.
The Tokyo silver medallists started well but Canada weathered the early pressure then struck from deep through Piper Logan.
The home fans then got to unleash their roar with the last play of the half when Ian Jason escaped down the left to collect a neat offload and make it 7-7 at halftime.
Yolaine Yengo then scored under the posts to make it 14-7 and cue uproar.
However, France, who left Seraphine Okemba on the bench until the ninth minute despite her four great tries against the U.S. earlier, then paid a heavy price for some sloppy passing in their own 22 as Logan ran in her second to level things up.
There was then stunned silence as Canada sent Chloe Daniels over in the corner to give them a 19-14 lead which they retained via two minutes of ferocious defence.
They will need that and more if they are to keep Levi at bay in the semi-finals after the remarkable winger ran in a first-half hat-trick to take her tournament tally to an Olympic record 11 in Australia’s thrashing of Ireland.
The teams had fought out a tight pool match in the morning that Australia edged 19-14 but it was one-way traffic in the rematch as the 2016 champions raced to a 26-0 halftime lead.
Biggest Victory
Defending champions New Zealand were on the board after 19 seconds when Sarah Hirini ran back the kick off against China and scores by Jasmine Felix-Hotham, Michaela Blyde and Portia Woodman-Wickliffe had the favourites 24-5 ahead at the break.Blyde added her second and further tries for Felix-Hotham, Mahina Paul (two) and Hirini completed by far the biggest knockout stage victory in the short history of Olympic sevens.
Britain also started strongly and led 7-5 at halftime through Ellie Boatman’s try against Naya Tapper’s for the U.S.
That lasted all of 10 seconds of the second half as Britain messed up the restart and Kristi Kirshe gobbled up the loose ball to score.
Britain’s handling and tackling then fell apart as Sammy Sullivan forced herself through to make it 17-7 and send the U.S. into the last four for the first time.
Those semis and the medal matches take place on Tuesday.
