Brandie Wilkerson (born July 1, 1992) is a Canadian beach volleyball player who plays as a right-side blocker. With teammate Heather Bansley, she achieved a career-high

world ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...

of No. 1 in November 2018. She is the 2018 FIVB Best Blocker. She has also competed on the AVP.

Early life

Wilkerson was born in Switzerland and moved to Canada when she was seven. Her father Herb Johnson, né Wilkerson, is a former basketball player who was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

. He played professionally in France, Spain, Japan, Turkey, and Switzerland. Her mother, Stephanie, was a Swiss national runner and a two-time Ironman finalist.

University career

Wilkerson played CIS volleyball for the

York Lions The York Lions is the official name for the athletic varsity teams that represent York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's varsity teams compete in the Ontario University Athletics conference of U Sports and, where applicable ...

from 2010 to 2014. For the 2010–11 season, she was named York's female rookie of the year and was the

OUA Oua is an islet on the north-east of Nukufetau atoll, Tuvalu, next to Lafanga Lafanga or Lafaga is an islet of Nukufetau, Tuvalu. The traditional history of Nukufetau recalls that in order to protect the atoll from raiders from Tonga Tong ...

rookie of the year in women's volleyball. In 2011–12, Wilkerson was named an OUA first-team all-star and was a

CIS Cis or cis- may refer to: Places * Cis, Trentino, in Italy * In Poland: ** Cis, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central ** Cis, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, north Math, science and biology * cis (mathematics) (cis(''θ'')), a trigonome ...

second-team All-Canadian as she led the OUA with 4.29 points scored per set. She repeated the OUA and CIS awards won in the 2012–13 season and finished with 4.21 points per set and 3.36 kills per set. In her senior year in 2013–14, she was limited to 11 matches due to an injury, but was still named an OUA East second-team all-star while ranking fourth in the OUA with 3.91 points per set.

International career

Wilkerson and Bansley first competed together at the Swatch World Tour finals in Toronto (Sepembert 13–18, 2016), where they finished 9th. In 2018, they had a break-out year and closed the season ranked No. 1 on the FIVB world tour. Wilkerson and Bansley were named as part of the Canadian Olympic team for the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, one of the nation's two entries in the

women's tournament A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

along with the team of Bansley's former partner

Sarah Pavan Sarah Lindsey Pavan (born August 16, 1986) is a Canadian beach volleyball and former indoor volleyball player. She was part of the Canada women's national volleyball team at the 2010 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship in Japan. With Mel ...

and

Melissa Humana-Paredes Melissa Humana-Paredes (born October 10, 1992) is a Canadian beach volleyball player, who is partnered with Brandie Wilkerson. Humana-Paredes won the women's gold medal with Sarah Pavan at the 2019 Beach Volleyball World Championships. Early li ...

. Bansley and Wilkerson struggled during pool play, recording two losses and one win, but advanced into the knockout stages due to being one of the top two "Lucky Loser" teams. In the Round of 16 they were the sixteenth seed, but unexpectedly upset the third-seeded American team of Claes/ Sponcil by winning two sets to one. In the quarter final they faced the Latvian team Kravčenoka/ Graudiņa, and were eliminated after losing two sets to one.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkerson, Brandie 1992 births Living people Canadian women's beach volleyball players Beach volleyball blockers Sportspeople from Lausanne Volleyball players from Toronto York Lions volleyball players Beach volleyball players at the 2020 Summer Olympics Black Canadian sportspeople Canadian people of African-American descent Canadian people of Swiss-French descent Naturalized citizens of Canada Swiss people of African-American descent Swiss emigrants to Canada