It has taken two years to emerge from the rubble of Rio.
An encouraging season was capped for the Elk Lake-based Canadian team by capturing the silver medal Sunday behind the U.S. in the women鈥檚 eight as the FISA 2018 world rowing championships concluded in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
That followed the gold medal Saturday in the women鈥檚 pair by Caileigh Filmer of Victoria and Hillary Janssens of Cloverdale, making both boats podium favourites for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
sa国际传媒 also won two Paralympics medals with the men鈥檚 pair of Andrew Todd and Kyle Fredrickson taking gold and Jeremy Hall the silver in the single.
sa国际传媒鈥檚 four medals, including two golds, placed it sixth in the overall world championships medals table behind the U.S., Italy, Germany, France and Australia.
The rebuild comes after Canadian rowing, which has won 26 Olympic medals since 1984, was held to the lone silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics by the retired Victoria lightweight women鈥檚 double crewed by Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee.
Rowing sa国际传媒 high performance director Iain Brambell of Brentwood Bay was a part of the halcyon days on Elk Lake as an Olympic medallist in Beijing 2008. He likes what he sees in the currently-emerging group.
鈥淲hile in Plovdiv, it was mentioned to me many times that sa国际传媒 was a team on the upward performance trajectory,鈥� said Brambell, in a statement.
鈥淭his is an area in which I am very keen to work closely with our athletes, coaches and support staff to bring to fruition for the 2019 Olympic and Paralympic qualifiers, and most importantly, Tokyo 2020.鈥�
The women鈥檚 double of Gabrielle Smith from Knowlton Rowing Club and Andrea Proske from Victoria City Rowing Club followed up their silver medal from the summer鈥檚 World Cup event in Lucerne by making the final and placing sixth Sunday at the worlds in Plovdiv.
鈥淥ur focus coming into the 2018 world championships was to achieve 鈥楢鈥� final performances [top six] while fighting for the podium,鈥� said Brambell.
鈥淭his was accomplished with 10 of 15 crews making the finals, with four podium performances and three fourth-place finishes.鈥�
sa国际传媒 has now won back-to-back women鈥檚 world championship silver medals in the eight, which is the marquee event of rowing. What was most impressive about Sunday鈥檚 crew was that it included three members from the world-champion 2017 Canadian U-23 eight, including Sydney Payne out of Brentwood College. Among the returning veterans was Rebecca Zimmerman out of the University of Victoria Vikes.
鈥淚 am impressed with the leadership of our returning veterans, coupled with the tenacity of athletes that represented sa国际传媒 at a world championship for the first time,鈥� said Brambell.
It鈥檚 a slower rebuild on the men鈥檚 side as the Canadian eight was second in the 鈥楤鈥� final Sunday to place eighth overall. The 鈥楢鈥� final, however, looks within reach over the next two years under the stewardship of legendary former Kiwi Olympic coach Dick Tonks.
That is quite a comeback in itself after Rowing sa国际传媒 passed on the event at the 2016 Rio Olympics because of a lack of depth. The program is looking to eventually regain its lofty place in the event to follow in the heady oar strokes of the Canadian men鈥檚 eights crews that came out of Elk Lake to win Olympic gold medals at Los Angeles in 1984, Barcelona in 1992 and Beijing in 2008 and silver at London in 2012. Conlin McCabe and Tim Schrijver joined fellow Rio 2016 fours rower Kai Langerfeld of Parksville and coxswain Jane Gumley out of UVic in the rebooted Canadian eight at Plovdiv.
