Sydenham paddlers win 8 medals at Trillium and Ontario Summer Games

Helen Parfitt | Sep 20, 2012

Photo: Harmonie Ruttan (in front) and Rhiannon Murphy in competition

The paddlers had a great season at the Sydenham Lake Canoe Club. All SLCC Peewee and Bantam paddlers who participated in the Eastern Ontario Divisional regatta managed to qualify for the Trillium Provincial Championship Regatta in Welland in mid-August. Of the seven who qualified, five came home with Trillium Provincial medals. Midget paddlers Bridget Ramzy and Genevieve L’Abbe also qualified for the Ontario Summer Games, bringing home three medals for the Eastern Ontario Division.

At the Trillium Provincial Regatta, novice paddler Ian Ramzy won a gold medal in the 1st year Peewee boys K1 100m A finals and a bronze medal in K1 1000m A finals. Sebastien L’Abbe won a bronze medal in the second year Peewee K1 100m A finals. Dominic Quintillian won a gold medal in the Bantam boys K1 100m B Finals. Harmonie Ruttan won a bronze medal in the Peewee K1 100m A-Finals. George Willes and Rhiannon Murphy both showed promise in their 100 m races. George Willes came in 5th in the Peewee boys K1 100 m B finals. Rhiannon Murphy had a strong finish in her Bantam Girls K1 100m B final. At the Ontario Summer Games, Bridget Ramzy, a very determined novice paddler, achieved her personal best in her Midget races and Genevieve L’Abbe won a bronze in both the Women’s K1 1000m and the 3000m; and a bronze in the K4 1000m.

The paddlers attribute their success to their hard work and the mentoring received from Sydenham’s coaches Natasha Ostopovich, Emma Anderson and Jack Fenlong.

The Sydenham Lake Canoe Club’s long-term goal is to equally develop both sprint canoeing and kayaking paddlers. Though all the medals were in kayaking this year, the club’s coaches are making steady progress towards its athletic development goals of producing athletes in both areas by getting more paddlers to try out sprint canoeing. In the last few years, all of the SLCC paddlers have been primarily kayakers as the club had few coaches whose primary strengths were coaching sprint canoeing. This season, Ostopovich and Anderson, both accomplished sprint canoeists, encouraged many of the paddlers to try sprint canoeing for the first time. This meant persuading kayak paddlers, accustomed to boats with a relatively low centre of gravity, to get into a very tippy sprint canoe and try to stay upright while balancing on one knee. “Though the Olympians make it look easy, it takes at least two weeks of constant tipping before you find your balance and move forward,” says SLCC’s founder, Commodore George Jones, “but the young paddlers are resilient and in two seasons of training, they are usually starting to win medals.” Sydenham’s Peewee paddler Sebastien L’Abbe exclaimed proudly, “It makes me feel good that I was finally able to keep my balance in a sprint canoe this summer.”