If this was a movie sequel, it might be titled Rowing Canada: The Rebuild.
The organization took its first strokes on the long journey to Tokyo 2020 by hosting its initial camp of the quadrennial in uncharacteristically cold and blustery conditions over the past week at Elk Lake.
The 45 best rowers in the country were in attendance as the national team looks to the 2017 world championships in Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida, from Sept. 24 to Oct. 1.
The once-mighty Canadian rowing team returned from last summer’s Rio Olympic Games with just the lone silver medal, won by Victorians Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee in the women’s lightweight double.
Officials say they will embrace the past while looking to rebound for the future.
“We respect the legacy and will take the good bits from the things people like [former coaches] Mike Spracklen and Al Morrow did . . . and ask ourselves how we use that to move the whole program forward,” said Adam Parfitt of Victoria, acting high-performance director for Rowing Canada.
Toward that end, there was a housecleaning in which head coach Martin McElroy left the Canadian men’s heavyweight team and head coach John Keogh departed the women’s heavyweight program in September. The new national team coaches for 2017 are Dave Thompson, Terry Paul, Michelle Darvill and John Wetzstein. Terry Dillon has been appointed the new CEO of Victoria-based Rowing Canada.
Thompson makes the move from Down Under after coaching the New Zealand women’s pair to the Olympic silver medal in Rio. He has coached Kiwi crews to silver medals at the past three world championships.
He stepped off the plane at YYJ six days ago and had to wonder that, if this is considered the mildest part of Canada in winter, what are the other parts like?
Despite the adverse conditions, Thompson said he considered the first Canadian camp of the new quadrennial a success.
“We are finding out what we have and where we are at, regarding our base of athletes, as we look long-term toward Tokyo,” he said.
As for coaching philosophy, Thompson said the most important thing in rowing is having a “good aerobic base.”
The athletes seem energized by the fresh opportunities a new quadrennial presents.
“Obviously, changes have been made — for the better — and it’s an exciting time right now,” said Carling Zeeman, who was 10th in the women’s single sculls at the Rio Olympics.
“I want to keep learning and moving in the right direction and being dynamic.”
But there are holes to fill. Parfitt said Jennerich and Obee have indicated their retirements, while only three of the rowers from the Rio Olympics fifth-place Canadian women’s eight were in the camp at Elk Lake.
Everyone has returned from the 2016 Olympic finalist men’s four and eighth-place quad boats. The men’s boat configurations have yet to be decided for the 2017 worlds.
Canada has won three Olympic gold medals since 1984 in the men’s eight and overall three gold, five silver and three bronze in that event at the Summer Games, and was heavily criticized for not entering a men’s eight boat at Rio to instead focus on smaller boats.
“That won’t be decided until the trials [May 12-14 on Burnaby Lake],” Parfitt said. “We will select our crew [configurations] on their opportunities to win medals and base those decisions on what those opportunities turn out to be.”
Two-time Olympian Parfitt was a rower in the eight for Canada, but said: “I am not culturally fussed about [the eight].”
THE WORLD TRAIL: Olympic teen swim sensation Penny Oleksiak will be at Saanich Commonwealth Place from April 6 to 9 competing in the Canadian trials for the 2017 FINA world aquatics championships in Budapest, Hungary, in July . . . The IFSC world climbing camp, the first conducted at Boulders Gym in Central Saanich since the sport was voted into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, was held last weekend and featured top Canadian hopefuls for the Olympics such as Elan Jonas-McRae of Nanaimo and Sean McColl of North Vancouver . . . The Victoria-based Triathlon Canada and Swimming Canada took cross-training to a new level last week with a joint camp in Arizona.
