It’s the last lap in Lucerne. And everything rides on it.
The Canadian rowing team, based on Quamichan Lake in North Cowichan, has so far qualified only two crews for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. That fact hangs over the once-mighty program as it named its roster Monday for the last-chance Olympic qualifying regatta May 19-21 in Lucerne, Switzerland.
But perhaps the biggest move was to bolster one of the two currently qualified boats that looks to be Canada’s best shot at the podium in Paris. The defending Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold-medallist Canadian women’s eight has added Caileigh Filmer of Victoria. The Mount Douglas Secondary graduate, who won the bronze medal in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the women’s pair, has been shifted into the eights for the Paris Olympics.
Despite being the defending Olympic champions and returning nearly half the crew from Tokyo — University of Victoria Vikes grad Avalon Wasteneys of Campbell River, Brentwood College-grad Sydney Payne, Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski and cox Kristen Kit — the Canadian women’s eight qualified fifth for the Paris Olympics through the 2023 world championships in Belgrade.
The boat needed something extra, a jolt, and it is thought Filmer can provide that. She has raced previously in the eight for the UVic Vikes and for Canada in the 2016 Rio Olympics. And she is an Olympic medallist, an accomplishment that can’t be ignored.
“It’s certainly different to be back in a big boat after spending so many years focusing on the pair, but it’s part of the reason I wanted to come back to rowing to see if I could add a piece to the puzzle in trying to help Canada win gold again this summer,” Filmer said in a statement.
“The first time I raced at the Olympics was in Rio when I was 19, and this fuels me to get back there to rewrite my first result in this boat class, [now] with many more years of experience.”
The other new crew members in the eight with Olympic experience are Kristina Walker and Jessica Sevick of Victoria while Abby Dent steps up from the 2023 Santiago Pan Am Games gold-medallist eight and Maya Meschkuleit from Yale of the Ivy League.
Besides the women’s eight, the women’s lightweight double of Jill Moffatt and Jenny Casson, fourth in the 2023 world championships, is the only other Canadian crew currently qualified for the Paris Olympics. The Canadian women’s eight and lightweight double will race in the World Cup 2 regatta in Lucerne from May 24-26.
Preceding the World Cup 2 event in Lucerne will be the last-chance qualifier for the 2024 Olympics. The Canadian men’s eight, led by 2012 London Olympics silver-medallist Will Crothers vying for his fourth Olympics, need to place in the top two in Lucerne to earn a berth in Paris. Crothers will be 37 by the time of the Paris Games. The other crew members are Jack Walkey of Victoria, Tokyo Olympians Gavin Stone and Jakub Buczek along with youthful sweepers Curtis Ames, Joel Cullen, Ryan Clegg and Terek Been with Paralympian Laura Court coxing.
“This crew is pushing each other hard every day … as we head towards the final qualifier in May,” Buczek said in a statement.
Canada’s only other crew in the Olympic qualifier is the women’s quad and must also place in the top two at Lucerne in order to get to Paris. The boat features Katie Clark of Cranbrook, Marilou Duvernay-Tardiff, sister of medical doctor and Super Bowl champion Laurent Duvernay-Tardiff, Shannon Kennedy, a Victoria physiotherapist, and two-time Olympian Carling Zeeman.
