The Sudbury Canoe Club (SCC) sprint team made the trek to the International Racing Centre on the Welland Canal this past weekend to participate in the Balmy Beach home regatta on July 11. This regatta saw 11 teams from across southern Ontario compete in a full day of Olympic-class canoe and kayak racing.
The team returned with a fistful of medals and the knowledge they can compete on an equal footing with the best in the province, a press release stated.
The midget women were the big winners of the day. In their first race of the day — the combined bantam and midget women’s K-1 3,000-metre race — they finished second, fourth and fifth in a group of 31 competitors, with only five seconds separating the three women.
Elyssa Cameron picked up the silver medal with Miki Iturregui close behind in fourth place and Emilie Bouchard following up in fifth place. Stepanie Mercier, competing in her very first competitive regatta, followed behind Emilie Bouchard by just 30 seconds.
Cameron picked up her second medal of the day with her K-2 partner, Iturregui, in the midget women’s K-2 1,000-metre race. After a late race charge through the pack, the pair barely missed out on the silver medal by 26/100ths of a second to take the bronze. Bouchard and Mercier teamed up in the same race to finish in fifth place out of 11 crews entered.
The midget women’s team completed the day’s medal haul. They entered the combined midget and juvenile women’s K-4 500-metre race as the underdogs. A strong race ended in another photo finish to determine which crew would get the gold, silver and bronze medals. The video review ended with the Sudbury crew of being awarded the bronze medal.
In the combined bantam and midget men’s K-1 3,000-metre, Eric Brunatti placed first amongst the bantam paddlers and ninth overall in a group of 44 paddlers. In the same race, Adrian Banete placed 15th.
Banete and Brunatti added to Sudbury’s medals and points total by capturing the bronze medal in the midget men’s K-2 1,000-metre race.
The SCC Sprint team will be travelling to North Bay on Aug. 1 to compete in the inter-divisional (East vs. West) regatta for crew boats. The following weekend, the team will be on the road to Welland, where the divisional championships will be held to determine who will qualify to race in the provincial championships on Aug. 22 and 23 in Sudbury.
