It’s the ripple effect that continues to sustain Canadian rowing.
Rosie DeBoef remembers being 12 and in the car on the Pat Bay Highway while her dad drove past Elk Lake. She was intrigued by the rowers. Twelve years later, the Victorian was on the podium at the 2014 world championships in Amsterdam with the Canadian silver-medallist women’s eight.
“The strength of this crew is its diversity . . . the veterans mixing so well with the younger rowers,” said DeBoef, by phone from Amsterdam after Canada captured silver on Sunday behind the U.S. with China taking the bronze.
Canada finished with two medals in the world championships with Victoria rowers Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee capturing the silver in women’s lightweight doubles earlier in the weekend.
It gets more immediate and urgent next year with the 2015 world championships at Lac d’Aiguebelette, France, the official qualifying regatta for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.
Canada’s national rowing program, which is based on Elk Lake in Saanich and Lake Fanshawe near London, Ont., will be looking to maintain a tradition that has produced 40 medals in the Summer Olympics. That is third best for Canada behind only the 53 won by track and field and 42 by swimming.
The Canadian rowing program, however, is in a rebuilding phase after the four medals from the 2008 Beijing Olympics dropped to two at London in 2012.
Along with the two silver-medallist crews from the 2014 world championships, Canadian rowing looks to have three other potential podium prospects for Rio. The Canadian men’s four and quad, both based on Elk Lake, were fifth and seventh, respectively, over the weekend at the worlds in Amsterdam. The women’s quad, featuring Antje Seydlitz-Kurzbach from the University of Victoria Vikes, was sixth.
“We have a deep team,” said eights silver-medallist Christine Roper of Victoria, alluding to the women’s side of the equation that produced the two Canadian medals at Amsterdam.
They have come from varied backgrounds to now pull in a common cause to Rio. Roper, a scuba diver and 2010 NCAA rowing champion with the University of Virginia Cavaliers, is a dual citizen who was born in Jamaica, where her dad managed a beach resort. She was a boarding adviser at St. Michaels University School where she also taught the learn-to-row program.
The most intriguing men’s crew is the Canadian four. It’s kind of a dream team that consists of three silver medallists from the Canadian eight at the 2012 London Olympics — Rob Gibson, Will Crothers, Conlin McCabe — and highly regarded newcomer Kai Langerfeld of Parksville. The learning curve from eights to fours rowing has been steep and often frustrating. But this crew, which went from 14th at the 2013 world championships to fifth this year, should continue to rise and could be poised for big things at Rio given two more years of work on Elk Lake.
Meanwhile, a twist has been thrown into the tale. Julien Bahain, a dual citizen who won bronze for France in the quad at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and rowed in the double at London 2012, is switching to singles and competed for Canada in placing 10th over the weekend at the 2014 worlds. He is moving to Victoria to prepare full time for Rio on Elk Lake. Canada hasn’t made an impact in the men’s single sculls since Derek Porter of Victoria became the 1993 world champion and won the silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and placed fourth at Sydney 2000.
Also to be decided is where Malcolm Howard of Victoria — Olympic gold and silver medallist for Canada in the eight at Beijing and London — will tantalizingly be slotted if he decides not to retire after leading Oxford to the championship in the storied Boat Race the past two years while studying medicine. Howard returns to Victoria from Oxford this fall.
