Silken Laumann walked the wooden wharf at Elk Lake to her rowing shell thousands of mornings. On Saturday night, she walked the red carpet in Toronto.
The Olympic rowing legend was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame with the Class of 2015, which included Coach’s Corner hockey commentators Don Cherry and Ron MacLean, crooner Michael Bublé and the late actor Lorne Greene. Also inducted were Book of Negroes author Lawrence Hill and actor Wendy Crewson.
Laumann has received many sporting accolades, but she said “this is the one that really transcends sports. It’s about being Canadian and achieving a high level in a given field.”
She became the seventh Islander to receive a Maple Leaf plaque on Canada’s Walk of Fame. She follows two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash (2008), actors Pamela Anderson (2006) and Kim Cattrall (2009), singers Nelly Furtado (2010) and Diana Krall (2004), and music producer David Foster (2002). “That’s good company,” she said. “We’ve got some talent on the Island.”
Laumann won three Olympic medals in her career. Her bronze-medal win in Barcelona in 1992 has been lauded as one of the greatest comebacks from injury in sporting history. The reigning single sculls champion’s left leg was shattered in a rowing accident just 10 weeks before the Games, and doctors said she might never row again.
“I invented what I wanted to happen,” she said. “Call it stubbornness.”
Laumann, whose 2014 memoir Unsinkable chronicled a troubled upbringing, does about five speaking engagements a month, mostly with non-profits.
“It’s a busy life and very fulfilling,” added the 50-year-old.
A spot on the Walk of Fame isn’t the only thing Laumann and Furtado have in common — they have also been involved in a common charity project, Free The Children’s We Day.
“I once joked with Nelly that her formative years were on the Island and she made it big in Toronto, while I came from there and made it in my sport in Victoria,” said Laumann, who grew up in Mississauga, Ont. “For me, it was the right coaching at the right time in the right environment. Victoria has been the perfect place to train for so many Olympic athletes.”
Canada’s Walk of Fame, inaugurated in 1998, now includes 161 famous Canadians with their own Maple Leaf plaques on the sidewalks surrounding Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto’s entertainment district.
The 2015 induction ceremonies will be broadcast Dec. 17 at 8 p.m. on Global TV.
