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 and she added a foul shot to cement a 64-62 victory over a resilient Australian outfit at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Monday.

Amber Merritt topped Australia with 33 points but missed two crucial shot attempts from in close in the last 23 seconds.

Her teammate, fellow forward Georgia Munro Cook, put the Aussies ahead 62-60 with 56.9 seconds remaining on two free throws after Canadian guard Elodie Tessier was assessed a foul.

Ouellet cut the margin in half, making one of two shots from the free throw line.

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.

WATCH | Full coverage of women's 5th-place game: Canada vs. Australia: