Canadian men defeat Olympic champion France for 1st time in Volleyball Nations League

Canada's men's volleyball team came away with a 3-1 (25-20, 25-18, 21-25, 27-25) victory over Olympic champion France in Volleyball Nations League action on Thursday in Ottawa.

It's the first time that Canada has beaten France since VNL began in 2018.

Xander Ketrzynski had a match-high 20 points for Canada, which improved to 1-1 at TD Place. Eric Loeppky had 18 and Stephen Maar added 12.

"I'm obviously super grateful; we have a lot of skills that we have been working on and were able to put those on display tonight," Maar said. "We were able to sit with it down the stretch and go point by point with a really strong, technical team. And I'm glad we were able to outlast them."

Canada led in attack points (58-53) and blocking (15-7), while making fewer errors (22-24).   France, however, had six aces compared to one for Canada.

Canada is off Friday before taking on the United States on Saturday.