Canada beats Jamaica to clinch Olympic spot

Canada will get the chance to defend their Olympic women's soccer gold medal after clinching a spot at next year's Paris Summer Games on Tuesday after a 2-1 win over Jamaica.

Canada came into the second leg in control of their own destiny after a 2-0 away win in Kingston on Friday and after an early scare delivered the result the home crowd had come see, convincingly punching their Paris ticket with a 4-1 win on aggregate.

The Canadians join the United States in the 12-team Olympic tournament with the Americans having earlier clinched one of the two CONCACAF region spots.

"I've thought about this game from the minute that World Cup ended so everybody has put a real shift in to do whatever we could to turn this around," said Canada coach Bev Priestman.

"This team is better when they're going after something and ultimately we are going after putting the wrong right of that World Cup."

Qualifying for the Olympics provided a small measure of redemption after a bitterly disappointing performance at the Women's World Cup, where Canada failed to advance out of the group stage.

Canada has won a gold and two bronzes medals from women's soccer at the last three Summer Games but Priestman conceded there is plenty of work ahead for her squad if they are to return to the podium in Paris.

"It's exciting but I am not getting carried away by any means because we've got some real hard work to do," said Priestman.

"To go and get on the podium again, and you've just seen at the World Cup, it is going to be harder than it has ever been."

Backed by a raucous home crowd, Canada applied all the early pressure but against the run of play it was the 'Reggae Girlz' grabbing a 1-0 lead in the 33rd minute on Drew Spence's brilliantly taken free kick