By The women on the Canadian national soccer team thought they had done enough to earn their first appearance in an Olympic title match when they squared off against the reigning world champion US Women’s National Team in Tokyo, having landed the more decisive goals in the match. While nearly all fans and media scoring the match on Twitter had it at 1-0 for the Canadians at the final whistle, awarding the lone score to a Jessie Fleming penalty kick in the 75th minutes, the judges saw it differently. While judge Mia Hamm scored the match for Canada 1-0, Cecil Peoples had it 2-1 to the Americans and Adalaide Byrd had it 4-0 for the United States, who took the match by split decision.
“It’s disappointing,” Canada captain Christine Sinclair said after the match, “I felt like we did enough out there to get the win. I guess that’s why they say not to leave it in the hands of the judges.”
The United States moves on to face Sweden in the Gold Medal match, where they will rematch with group opponents Sweden. The Scandinavian side took the group play match between the two on two cards, with scores of 3-0, 3-0, 0-3.
