Halloween Means World Rowing Championships
The world’s best rowers have converged on New Zealand for the 2010 World Rowing Championships. Starting on Halloween and running until Nov. 7th, Canada is looking for more treats than tricks on Lake Karapiro.
The Canadian contingent is a mix of experience and potential, making for high hopes at this season-ending regatta. In the spirit of the season, we look at some of Canada’s medal hopefuls, as represented by a popular Halloween costume.
Superman: Men’s Eights
They’re strong, fast—the standard bearer. This is historically a strong event and Canada took gold at the Olympic Games in Beijing two years ago. Andrew Byrnes is the lone holdover from that group and is looking to improve upon last year’s silver medal. They’ll have to be wary of the Kryptonite that is a very deep pool of competition.
The Cast of Glee: Women’s Eights
Though Glee has men in the cast and this boat is for ladies only, there is no doubt that they make beautiful music together when they work as a team. Also, six-time Olympian and four-time medallist cox Leslie Thompson-Willie is the Mr. Shuester to lead them to victory. This year, they took gold at the British Henley and silver at the Lucerne World Cup race.
Buzz Lightyear and Woody: Men’s Lightweight Pair
Olympians Cam Sylvester and Doug Vandor are looking to go to infinity and beyond after a gold and a bronze this World Cup season. Just like Toy Story’s lead duo, these two have been together a long time and still churn out great results.
Thelma and Louise: Women’s Lightweight Pair
Olympic bronze medallist Tracy Cameron and Lindsay Jennerich are to women who travel far and fast together. They are hard to catch. Luckily for Canadian rowing fans, their ride at the Worlds will end a lot better than the original Thelma and Louise’s did.
The Lone Ranger: Men’s Singles Sculls
A member of the 2008 gold-medal men’s eights crew, Malcolm Howard is off on his own, looking to score solo success as a sculler. This is rowing’s equivalent of the 100-metre dash: athletes competing one on one, with the fastest taking the glory. Like the Ranger, Howard depends on his ride. Perhaps we can nickname his scull Silver, after the fictional cowboy’s horse.
Canada will also have boats competing in the Women’s Heavyweight Quad and Heavyweight Pair, as well as the Men’s Lightweight Four and Heavyweight Four. You can read biographies of the entire Canadian team at .
Rowing fans can also catch their teams live online on www.cbcsports.ca and watch the competition on CBC Television November 13th.
This Halloween, the Canadian rowing team will put a scare in their competition and try to come home with a bag full of World Championships.
