(ATR) Team Canada’s canoe slalom athletes say it will be a surreal experience to compete in front of a home crowd at the first Pan Am Games featuring the sport.
Cameron Smedley, one of Canada’s competitors in the C-1 men’s single canoe event says having a home country advantage is really important.
"I know the waters of Minden quite well, it’s like my home away from home," Smedley told reporters at a press conference. "It’s a natural course compared to the courses in Europe which are mostly man-made so it makes the waters more steady."
Smedley’s teammate Ben Hayward will also compete in the men’s C-1 event. He says the competition will be great exposure for the sport as it is an Olympic qualifier.
"It’s pretty amazing to have home games as the first one. It will be a good expose of our sport. It was the first sport to sell out so there is already a lot of excitement for the event," Hayward said.
Women will compete for both the canoe sprint and slalom for the first time at the Pan Am Games, although women’s slalom canoe events are not currently recognized for the Olympic program.
"This is our step towards Tokyo 2020, this is the opportunity to show the world that we are ready and the Olympics is the way we should be headed. Men and women are at the same level right now," Haley Daniels said.
Daniels and teammate Jazmyne Denhollander are not eligible for Sport Canada funding because their event is not included on the Olympics program. They hope the Pan Ams will be their chance to showcase that women should be on the program.on that will be made in August.
Daniels says this has been a big year for women’s canoe, "giving awareness to people and letting them know there’s a glass ceiling that still need to be broken."
Until then, Daniels will continue to fund herself by creating cookbooks and teaching cooking classes. She has released one cookbook so far but says the proceeds from these projects still aren’t enough to keep her out of the red.
Although Hayward and Smedley both agree it is time for women to join the Olympic program in their sport, they note that if the women’s single event is added, the men’s double event will likely be taken off the sports program.
"It’s an unfortunate double-edge sword that we are looking at but it ultimately does make sense to get gender equality in the sport," Hayward says.
Hayward tells Around the Rings that although it is likely the C-2 event will be taken off the program for the women’s single event to be added, there is a large campaign by canoe athletes to save the C-2 event. He says many people sport shirts reading "Save C-2" at the world championships and are advocating to have both the C-2 and women’s C-1 events in the Olympics.
Hayward and Smedley will compete in the C-2 event at the Pan Ams and could potentially qualify for the last instance of the event on the Olympic program at Rio 2016.
Written by Kevin Nutley
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