While most eyes were on the World Cup on the pitch, there were World Cup waves on water, as well.
The rebuild of the Canadian national rowing program on Elk Lake continued amid further signs of success, with four medals over the weekend at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Caileigh Filmer of Victoria and Hillary Janssens of the UBC Thunderbirds followed up their gold medal at the first World Cup event last month in Belgrade, Serbia, by capturing silver at Lucerne in the women’s pair.
Olympian Filmer, a University of Victoria rower out of Mount Douglas Secondary, and Janssens were only 0.43 seconds off the pace set by the defending world champion Kiwis.
“It just felt really close the whole way with the New Zealand boat,” said Janssens, in a statement.
“It was great to race them and we can see why they’re the world-best time holders and reigning world champions. It’ll be fun to continue racing them and see where the season takes us.”
The Canadian women’s eight, featuring six rowers from the 2017 world championship silver-medallist crew, also won silver at Lucerne. The crew included Rebecca Zimmerman and Campbell River’s Avalon Wasteneys out of the UVic Vikes and Sydney Payne from Brentwood College.
The Canadian women’s double of Gabrielle Smith from Knowlton Rowing Club and Andrea Proske from Victoria City Rowing Club, racing together for the first time in an international regatta, won silver behind the Kiwis in a breakthrough that seemed to take everyone aback.
“We’re pretty much speechless,” said Smith.
“We’ve only been rowing together for three weeks and to compete in such a field of competitors has left us speechless.”
Carling Zeeman captured bronze in the women’s single.
The close calls continued for the Canadian lightweight pair of Patrick Keane from the UVic Vikes and Maxwell Lattimer of the UBC Thunderbirds, who were again fourth in Lucerne after also placing fourth in the Belgrade World Cup.
Canada had two finalists in the women’s lightweight double with Jill Moffatt and Jennifer Casson fifth and Ellen Gleadow and Katherine Haber sixth.
The Canadian men’s eight, powered by veterans Martin Barakso of Nanaimo and Olympian Kai Langerfeld of Parksville with Jane Gumley of UVic coxing, made the final and placed sixth.
The Canadian women’s four was seventh.
“We came into Lucerne with growing excitement within the team and the expectation of achieving A-finals,” said 2008 Olympic bronze-medallist Iain Brambell of Brentwood Bay, the Rowing Canada high performance director, in a statement.
“We accomplished this goal and depart Europe better prepared for the training between now and world championships. It’s always fantastic to see Canadian crews on the podium and even more impressive for those attending their first senior international competition.”
More than 600 rowers from 37 nations competed in Lucerne, considered the most prestigious World Cup stop.
The big event this year is the 2018 FISA world championships Sept. 9-16 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, with the ultimate goal the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Canada, a former world rowing power, is looking to rebound back to its old form after being held to a lone silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics that was provided by the retired Victoria lightweight women’s double crewed by Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee.
