It’s not quite the heady days of the pre-Beijing 2008 or pre-Barcelona 1992 vibe on Elk Lake. But an air of optimism pervades proceedings as Rowing Canada named the national team Monday for the 2018 FISA world championships Sept. 9-16 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, with an eye out to the ultimate goal of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Canada goes into the worlds after winning four medals at the last World Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland, last month. The rebuild comes after Canadian rowing was held to a lone silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics by the retired Victoria lightweight women’s double crewed by Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee.
“The entire team has been going incredible in training. All boats are going really well,” said Caileigh Filmer of Victoria, who was named to the 43-member team.
“We’ve been working hard while riding off the great results we’ve had this summer. The team has the ball rolling. Expectations now are about getting into ‘A’ finals and being in the medal hunt.”
Filmer, of the University of Victoria Vikes, and Hillary Janssens of the UBC Thunderbirds followed up their gold medal at the first World Cup event in June in Belgrade, Serbia, by capturing silver at Lucerne in the women’s pair, only 0.43 behind the defending world champion and world-record holding Kiwis.
“We’ve found two exciting World Cup results in our boat,” said Filmer, out of Mount Douglas Secondary.
“Both Hillary and I love working with each other and communicate really easily to each other. We are a very technical crew. There is a lot of trust in the boat. That’s so important in the pair.”
The defending world silver-medallist women’s eight will be augmented by three members of the 2018 Canadian U-23 world-champion eight, including Sydney Payne out of Brentwood College. The veterans returning to the powerhouse boat are Rebecca Zimmerman out of the UVic Vikes, Christine Roper, Susanne Grainger, Lisa Roman, Jennifer Martins and coxswain Kirsten Kit.
The Canadian women’s double of Gabrielle Smith from Knowlton Rowing Club and Andrea Proske from Victoria City Rowing Club, coming off the World Cup silver medal in Lucerne, will reprise those roles at the world championships next month.
The men’s lightweight pair of Patrick Keane from the UVic Vikes and Maxwell Lattimer of the UBC Thunderbirds, who have been fourth twice in World Cup regattas this summer, go into the worlds knowing the podium is close.
The biggest news on the men’s side is that the eight is back after it was abandoned at Rio 2016 because of a lack of depth. Canada has a halcyon recent history in the men’s eight with Olympic gold at Los Angeles in 1984, Barcelona in 1992 and Beijing in 2008 and silver at London in 2012.
Conlin McCabe and Tim Schrijver join fellow Rio 2016 Olympic fours rower Kai Langerfeld of Parksville and coxswain Jane Gumley of UVic in the retooled Canadian eight under legendary former Kiwi Olympic coach Dick Tonks.
The national team breaks camp, which was held on Elk Lake and Duncan’s Quamichan Lake, on Thursday for a pre-world championship camp in Ioannina, Greece, ahead of arriving in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, on Sept. 3.
