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The more than 50 Island athletes competing in the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games, which begin with the opening ceremonies at the Rogers Centre tonight, came out of modest local fields, trails, courts and lakes.
It鈥檚 not so much the venue, but what you bring to it. Island athletes have always brought a lot to the fields of play, from the Olympics to world championships.
Volleyball players Fred Winters and Shanice Marcelle got to Toronto from the courts of Claremont Secondary and Spectrum Community School, respectively. Rugby sevens players Sean White, Mike Fuailefau and Pat Kay from the fields of Oak Bay High, SMUS and Cowichan High. Cam Levins from the myriad running trails around Courtenay, field-hockey star Maddie Secco from the pitch at Oak Bay, high-jumper Michael Mason from the jumping pits of Ballenas in Parksville and swimmer Ryan Cochrane out of Saanich Commonwealth Place pool.
Soccer player Emma Fletcher of Victoria is at the Pan Am Games as part of the youth movement that will eventually replace the veterans from the quarter-finalist Canadian team which recently hosted the 2015 World Cup.
Liz Fenje rowed out of St. Michaels University School to Stanford and then Oxford to be in St. Catharines today, site of the Pan Am Games rowing venue.
鈥淭his is so neat because I鈥檝e come full circle,鈥� Fenje said.
鈥淭his St. Catharines course is where I competed in my first regatta for SMUS in Grade 10.鈥�
The Islander noted that most international rowing is done in Europe and Canadians rarely get to compete at home.
鈥淭o hear the roar of the crowd cheering for you over the final 100 metres is certainly going to be different, and it鈥檚 going to be incredibly special for everybody on the Canadian team,鈥� Fenje said.
Yet, like the Commonwealth Games, the Pan Am Games are dismissed by some critics as second-rate relics from a bygone time before most sports had their own individual world championships. Some of the biggest sporting stars of the Americas 鈥� Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Lionel Messi, Hope Solo, Christine Sinclair, LeBron James and Andrew Wiggins 鈥� won鈥檛 be in Toronto.
But these Games still serve a purpose to hone skills and instincts for upcoming world championships and Olympic qualifiers. And, it鈥檚 done in a full-on Games setting, which is rare to experience. Even less so on home soil for Canadian athletes.
The athletes in Toronto would be well-advised to consider this a dress rehearsal for Rio 2016 Olympics. Consider Richard Weinberger, who was a little-known Victoria open-water swimmer four years ago, before his breakthrough gold medal at the 2011 Guadalajara Pan Am Games. He followed that up with bronze at the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Could London have followed without Guadalajara for Weinberger?
鈥淛ust to experience the Athletes Village, the transportation, the food, and the thousands of other athletes from different sports is a good thing to go through,鈥� said 2015 Toronto Games rower Martin Barakso from Nanaimo.
For a few, such as field hockey鈥檚 Secco, the Pan Am Games literally are their Olympic qualifier for Rio 2016. For others, the Pan Am Games will be as good as it gets.
The Games will get off to a potential boffo start for Island athletes, with the Langford-based Canadian men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 rugby sevens teams expected to medal with the popular new variation of an historically tradition-abiding sport leading off the Toronto Games competition schedule on Saturday and Sunday.
Rugby sevens will make its Olympic debut next year听at Rio 2016,
Jesse Hodges鈥� sport of baseball is no longer in the Summer Olympics and trying to get back in for Tokyo 2020. For now, the Pan Am Games will have to suffice for the Victoria infielder, who will suit up for sa国际传媒 in Toronto.
The Chicago Cubs-signed product of the Victoria Mariners junior program has a tough act to follow. Six-foot-four pitcher Mark Hardy of Campbell River, a 2010 Padres draft pick, was part of the Canadian team that recorded a stunning 2-1 upset over the U.S. in the baseball final of the 2011 Pan Am Games.
鈥渟a国际传媒 is the defending champion from 2011 in Mexico, which is very exciting and motivating for us to defend at home,鈥� said Hodges, a graduate of Lambrick Park. 鈥淲e have a team of ex-big leaguers and younger guys and I鈥檓 glad to be representing sa国际传媒 again [something Hodges also did in winning silver at the 2012 world junior championships in South Korea with a breakout performance that earned him a minor-league pro contract in the Cubs organization].鈥�
The Island athletes in Toronto are chasing the 21 medals Island athletes accounted for at the 2011 Pan Am Games. Island highlights in Guadalajara included the gold medals won by Weinberger, Hardy and the Langford-based men鈥檚 rugby sevens, Victoria water-polo goaltender Rachel Riddell鈥檚 silver, double silver medals by rowers Kai Langerfeld of Parksville and Spencer Crowley of Lantzville, the silver medals from Victoria mountain biker Max Plaxton and Victoria rowers Joshua Morris and Mark Laidlaw, and Victoria triathlete Brent McMahon鈥檚 bronze. Then there was that gladdening 2011 Pan Am Games storyline crafted by Nanaimo bowler Jennifer Willis-Park, who won the silver medal in women鈥檚 tenpin singles in-between nursing her then two-month-old daughter, Katelyn.
We will find out over the next 16 days what Island stories, from the idiosyncratic to the compelling, await to be written at Toronto 2015. With the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games in the rear-view mirror, this is the last multi-sport stop for Canadian athletes before the big one at Rio 2016.
