Cindy Ouellet shines for Canada in 5th-place finish at wheelchair basketball worlds

Canada needed each of Cindy Ouellet's game-high 35 points for its fifth-place finish at the wheelchair basketball world championships.

The 34-year-old point guard's layup with 34.2 seconds left in regulation put her team ahead for good in a 64-62 victory over a resilient Australian outfit at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Monday.

Canada, which last medalled at the event with its 2014 gold, was also fifth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2018 worlds in Hamburg, Germany. They have won seven world championship medals since the inaugural edition in 1990.

The Canadian men also played in a fifth-place match Monday but dropped a 67-56 decision to Italy.

The world championships determine the number of spots each zone will receive for the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. The four zones in the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) are Africa, Americas, Asia Oceania and Europe.

Canada's men's and women's wheelchair basketball teams will also compete at the 2023 Parapan American Games (Nov. 17-26), which will serve as the Americas zone qualification tournament for the Paris Games.