Ottawa Sportspage

HeartbeatThe Heartbeat of the Ottawa Sports Community SportsOttawa.com Vol. 3, #11 August 2014 August 2014

It’s a new world in the sport of wres-tling, and Erica Wiebe is on top of it.

Amateur wrestling doesn’t tend to get much airtime in Canada, so the bigger spotlight of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games provided an introduction for many Canadians to the bright young woman who has the potential to be the nation’s capital’s biggest threat for the Olympic podi-um in coming years.

“She’s certainly not new on the wrestling scene any more,” emphasiz-es Canadian national team coach Leigh Veirling, listing off a glowing list of ac-complishments that includes victories over all the recent Olympic medalists and world champions. “She’s ranked #1 in her weight class in the world right now and she’s earned that rank.”

Despite some Games-related jitters, Wiebe was in control and dominant en route to Commonwealth gold, winning three of her four matches by wrestling’s version of knockout (pinfall or scoring 10 points more than an opponent).

The July 29 triumph at the Scot-tish Exhibition & Conference Centre was the latest in a remarkable season

that’s seen the Stittsville native earn titles in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Sweden and Colorado. She’s lost only two matches all year, both in a team event in Japan.

“Looking back on it, it’s like, ‘Wow, that is pretty crazy,’” Wiebe says. “But I’m always focused on my next competition. There always seems to be one right around the corner.”

The next big one is the Sept. 8-14 FILA Wrestling World Championships, where she’ll enter as the favourite. It’s

been a rapid rise for Wiebe, who didn’t have a ton of international experience before establishing herself as Canada’s best 75 kg wrestler in 2013.

“It’s pretty cool,” refl ects Wiebe, who fi nished seventh in her worlds debut last year. “World Champion-ships are in Uzbekistan this year. I don’t know when in my life I’d ever travel to Uzbekistan as a tourist.

“It’s pretty surreal that I get to do what I love and travel the world. My dad will joke around and say I still live below the poverty line, but I feel like I’m living a pretty good life.”

OLYMPIC HOPES FUEL DRIVE

Growing up, Wiebe was always a keen athlete, playing basketball and competitive soccer, and trying out rhythmic gymnastics in part thanks to her mom’s role as a tireless vol-unteer in the sport. But she settled in on wrestling at Sacred Heart High School and later moved to the Uni-versity of Calgary to pursue her sport at the next level. The former National Capital Wrestling Club competitor won three national university titles and was a contender for the London

2012 Olympic team, but missed win-ning Canada’s lone berth in her class.

“Every little kid has this dream of standing on top of the Olympic podi-um,” details Wiebe, who’s dating Ol-ympic bobsledder Chris Spring. “Go-ing into London Olympic trials, I had that dream, but it was still a dream. I was still like a little kid: ‘Oh, I want to do that one day.’ I didn’t realize how close I really was.

“In the last two years, I’ve men-tally wrapped my mind around that mindset of being the best and having that confi dence on the mat. Tactically and technically, it’s all come together.

“Now, I feel like that dream has become a tangible goal that I feel is mine for the taking. I’ve beaten Ol-ympic champions, and now I know exactly what it takes to get there. That’s defi nitely my biggest goal and what’s driving me every day.”

NEW WRESTLING WORLD

Wiebe’s Olympic dream was nearly crushed when wrestling was removed from the Games by the International

Commonwealth gold the latest in Wiebe’s 2014 run to world #1By Dan Plouffe

YOUTH OLYMPICS BULLSEYE

ANTICLIMACTIC COMMONWEALTH

OYSL EAST CROWN FOR FURY

P. 8-10

P. 15

P. 7

Archer Eric Peters is one of six Ottawa athletes set to compete in the 2014 Youth Olympic Games.

Melissa Bishop and 3 other Ottawa Lions could have imagined a better time on the track in Glasgow.

The Ottawa Fury won their club’s fi rst provincial division title, but later lost the OYSL fi nal.

FLAG-WAVING FRIZELL

P. 16Gold medal hammer thrower Sultana Frizell was Canada’s Closing Ceremony fl ag bearer in Glasgow.

Turning the wrestling world onits head

PHOTO: STEVE KINGSMAN

GLASGOW 2014 continues p.13

PHOTO: STEVE KINGSMANErica Wiebe was a hit with the Scottish crowd when she pulled the hat that came free with a newspaper purchase in down-town Glasgow from her pocket and hammed it up with photogra-phers at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Erica Wiebe’s closest match en route to the Commonwealth Games gold medal came against Nigeria’s Blessing Onye-buchi, who put a little scare into the world’s #1 ranked athlete with a score in the fi nal moments of a 4-2 match.

2

Despite a relatively short period to prepare, Cumberland na-tive Vincent De Haitre proved he can be a formidable competi-tor on wheels in the international scene, just like he is on blades.

The Sochi 2014 Olympic speed skater helped Canada reach the medal round in the men’s team sprint competition at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, settling for fourth, and also earned a seventh-place fi nish in the men’s 1,000-metre time trial during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

“I can’t be disappointed. I took over a second off my pre-vious best time – a common theme for me in these Games, I guess,” smiles De Haitre, who his times race-by-race each time he appeared. “With the limited time that I’ve had on the track, I was pleased that I could go out and put up the kind of time that would get me in seventh place.”

De Haitre, Canada’s reigning national champion in the 1,000 m speed skating and track cycling events, switched to cycling training not long after an exhausting speed skating season. The 20-year-old was impressed with his progress in the sport, and hopes to continue to improve towards the mid-September Pan American championships.

“For me, it’s a great developmental opportunity and just to see where I’m at and where I was able to get to in two months’ time,” De Haitre underlines. “I’m really pleased to see how far I’ve come. I still see there’s a long road ahead, but hopefully there’s more cycling in my future.”

Attending a second international multi-sport games in the same year gave De Haitre a bit of notoriety among those Games attendees who follow winter sports.

“The people who ask what sport I do, I have to tell them, ‘Well, I’m a track cyclist at the Games. And I’m a speed skat-er,’” recounts De Haitre, who then watches that person’s jay drop when he mentions he just got back from Sochi. “And then, deep down, I feel a little happy. But I know when I’m here, I’m here to bike. I’m just glad I have the opportunity to do the most with what I do.”

FAMILY FUN

Based in Calgary for the majority of the year, the trip to the Games offered an opportunity to spend a little time with his parents. By complete coincidence, a close family friend – De Haitre’s old babysitter – was getting married shortly after his competition nearby in Scotland.

“It’s been about two years since I’ve seen her, so I’m really glad I get to go,” smiles De Haitre.

The Gloucester Concordes speed skater was pleased to have his parents in the stands for a major Games this time around.

“They didn’t come to Sochi, which was my choice. I know if they were there, I’d want to be with them at some point,” says De Haitre, noting that it can be draining to coordinate visits between accredited athletes and mere mortals around high-security Games sites.

“It’s nice to have them here. They’ve spent all my life helping me out. I defi nitely owe it to them to let them come watch,” he laughs.

It wasn’t the performance she was looking for, but it was still impossible for Ottawa weightlifter Isabelle Després to do anything but smile when she came off the stage, her fi rst international multi-sport games offi cially complete.

Her 179 kg combined total for the snatch and clean-and-jerk was good enough for ninth place out of 15 athletes entered in the women’s 58 kg Common-wealth Games competition.

“I didn’t have any legs left at the end,” describes Després, who had a rough time cutting weight before the weigh-in and wasn’t able to properly re-hydrate due to less time before the competition that she’s used to domestically.

“I had nothing in me,” she adds. “That’s a weight I can do on a regular ba-sis usually, but whatever, it’s not too bad.”

But Després couldn’t do anything but savour the moment where she stepped out in front of a mostly full house at Clyde Auditorium – a venue somewhat similar to the National Arts Centre – and hoisted a big weight above her head while wearing the maple leaf on her chest.

“I’m still trembling,” the Ottawa Elite weightlifting club athlete details. “It’s a big crowd. We’re used to seeing athletes and their parents and their friends, which is maybe 30 people.”

There was more than just compet-ing that made Després’ Commonwealth Games special. Selected by draw, she was one of the lucky athletes who got to meet the Queen, and see Prince Philip at the event.

That’s a long way from the day-to-day grind of training far from the spotlight and struggling to make ends meet while trying to balance work and her pursuit of being an elite international athlete.

“That’s why I think I’m still smiling,” explains the 33-year-old originally from Moncton. “I’m grateful that I got here. I am older, and I’ve got a lot of injuries – major injuries. I’ve got some disks that are pretty smushed, I’ve got some arthritis, a labral tear, problems in my lower back, my ribs go out of place all the time...

“I’m a mess, but somehow I managed to make it here. And for me, the journey did build some character. That’s the big picture. I’m learning how to deal with stressful situ-ations. Now when little things happen back

home, I’m like, ‘Whatever. It’s not a big deal.’ I can get through anything.”

Després’ journey to reach Glasgow 2014 served as a source of inspiration for another Canadian weightlifter making her Games debut, Marie-Josée Malboeuf, who’s at the other end of the pyramid at age 19.

“She’s a great competitor,” says Mal-boeuf, who topped Després’ total by 3 kg to fi nish seventh. “She’s really hard-work-ing. She’s what, 33 years old? And she’s managed to get here. It’s really impres-sive. I hope that I’ll be competing here at age 33 too.”

Després tried her hand at many sports over the years – track and soccer most seriously – but discovered weightlifting while studying at the University of Ot-tawa, setting her on course to the Com-monwealth Games, overcoming countless hurdles along the way.

“Hey, I never thought I’d get here, so I’m pretty happy,” underlines the sister of former Olympic bobsledder Serge De-sprés. “It was really amazing being here at the Games, having everyone cheering and being here representing Canada.

“It’s like a dream-come-true for me.”

Canada captured only its third medal of all-time in Commonwealth Games table tennis competition, winning the women’s doubles bronze medal. Down two sets and 8-5 in the third, former Ottawa resident Mo Zhang – who was based at the national team’s past Ottawa training centre home several years ago – and Anqi Luo battled back against England to win three tight games 11-8, 14-12 and 12-10.

“We were nervous,” when facing the big defi cit early, recounts China-born Zhang, who embraced her teammate immediately after the enormous victory for Canadian table tennis. “It was really exciting. That’s our fi rst medal ever (in women’s doubles) at Commonwealth, so that’s pretty good.”

Eugene Zhen Wang, who calls Ottawa home but trains primarily in Germany, reached the quarter-fi nals in both the men’s singles and mixed doubles events.

Huge win, huge hug

PHOTO STEVE KINGSMANPHOTO STEVE KINGSMAN

Vincent De HaitreIsabelle Després

By Dan Plouffe

By Dan Plouffe

OTTAWA AT THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES

Olympic speed skater impresses in second Games

of 2014 in track cycling

PHOTO STEVE KINGSMAN


Weightlifter savours hard-earned opportunity to represent Canada

3

By Dan Plouffe


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A breakthrough season didn’t come with a dream fi nish for Samantha Cornett.

The 23-year-old squash player won her fi rst match at the Commonwealth Games but couldn’t get past English veteran Jenny Duncalf in the round 16 despite a valiant third-set come-back attempt at the Scotstoun Sports Centre in Glasgow, Scotland.

The early exit was particularly devastating

for the athlete whose sport is not part of the Ol-ympic programme.

“This is what I’ve been training for,” states Cornett, who lived in Ottawa from age 9 through her teenage years while launching her interna-tional squash career. “It is the biggest event for squash, numbers-wise, with the most countries involved, in a multi-sport event. It’s a big thing for us. Most of the top players are here. I’m pret-ty sad to be out.”

The Commonwealth Games took place at

a time that is usually the off-season for Cornett and came at the end of a standout campaign for the player who’s now based in Toronto, living with her grandparents.

Cornett was national champion this season, a fi nalist in a Women’s Squash Association World Tour event in St. Louis, and she had a big per-formance at the world champion-ships, surprising herself so much with an appearance in the round of 16 that she had to rebook her fl ight home to

a later date.Compared to her fi rst Commonwealth

Games at Delhi 2010, there’s an even larger con-trast. That Games was essentially about having a fun experience, Cornett recounts, while she’s

now evolved to the point where she feels she could beat anyone.

“I’m sort of a new person,” indicates Cor-nett, who attended a fancy lunch with the Queen along with a select few athletes from each Com-

monwealth delegation. “I think it’s a maturity thing, as well as an understanding of what it takes. Obviously I haven’t fi gured it out altogether, or else I’d be on to the next round, but I think

every month I fi gure out something small. “It’s not big things at this point. Once you

get from 1-20 in the world, what separates you? Not a whole lot.

“It’s small things that get me to the next level. I think I’m on a right track.”

Commonwealth crash stings squash player on heels of standout season


Samantha Cornett

2014

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RA Centre badminton player An-drew D’Souza wore wide eyes and an even wider smile as his face flashed on TV cameras during the Opening Ceremonies of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, and both didn’t fade at all throughout the July 23-Aug. 3 event as the 20-year-old soaked up every moment and experi-ence he could.

“Opening Ceremonies was prob-ably the highlight of my life,” D’Souza revels. “Oh my God, that was mind-blowing. It’s the fi rst multi-sport event I’ve been to, and I couldn’t believe it. I’m so happy I went. I can’t even de-scribe how happy I was.

“Walking into the stadium and see-ing it completely packed, with all the lights and everyone watching, it was just amazing.”

D’Souza felt an “aura” in the ath-letes’ village that he craves, since he’s

not always surrounded by people with the same drive and focus when working out at the university gym, for example.

“Here, everyone wants it,” signals the University of Ottawa human stu-dent. “You can almost see it in their eyes, as they’re warming up or heading to their event.”

At 234th, D’Souza’s world ranking is hurt quite a bit simply because he doesn’t get to play much internation-ally. Being a full-time student makes it diffi cult, as does a lack of funding for travel, although he viewed being self-funded for the Commonwealth Games as a bit of a positive, since the com-munity provided tremendous support for his fundraising and more people in Ottawa got to know about him and his ambitions.

“A lot of these guys are playing in-ternationally a lot and I don’t get to see them much because I’m in school the whole year,” D’Souza adds. “It sucks, but you gotta do what you gotta do.”

D’Souza clearly demonstrated that he’s got skills worthy of a higher status in the global scene at the Com-monwealth Games. Undefeated in his singles matches during pool play of the mixed team event, D’Souza earned wins over more experienced Welsh and Australian rivals, display-ing an unstoppable energy once he pounced on opponent mistakes.

In Canada’s quarter-fi nal round loss to India, it was the opposite effect for the young player, unable to stop the bleeding once he got down against an Indian player in a decisive defeat.

D’Souza’s Games debut was partly about simply gaining experience, but he also made a bit of noise with his play.

“I want to show Canada, and of course the world, what I can do,” high-lights D’Souza, who later won two matches to reach the round of 16 in the men’s singles competition. “I want to make a name for myself.”

4

‘Mind-blowing’ fi rst Games experience for badminton player

Owen Watt only began playing ultimate three years ago, and now the 18-year-old Ottawa native is a world champion.

Watt and his Canadian teammates won gold at the 2014 World Junior Ultimate Championships, pulling off a thrilling 17-16 sudden-death triumph over the United States in the fi nal game on July 26 in Lecco, Italy.

“I’ve been dreaming about it for a while,” Watt smiles, “and now that it’s hap-pening, it just feels amazing.”

With tournament matches ending when a team reaches 17 points, the cham-pionship game for world supremacy in the open cat-egory was deadlocked at 16, meaning the game would be decided on universal point.

“Generally, the games are won by a much larger spread,” Watt notes. “(The gold medal fi nal) was a war of attrition, almost, since it was such a hard-fought game.”

The culminating mo-ment was a reward for the hard work Watt has put into the sport in recent years, even if his rise to a national level has been fairly swift.

“About six months into when I started playing, they had tryouts for the (2012) world championships team. So I went out and I wasn’t good enough,” recalls the member of Ottawa’s top open team, Phoenix. “I saw the types of players who were there and kind of wanted to be a part of that, so I made it my goal to make it two years later.”

Watt wound up achiev-ing his goal by making the 2014 edition – the lone Otta-

wa male chosen to Canada’s 24-player roster.

“It meant a lot to be named to the team,” he re-fl ects. “I’ve been training so much to be on that team... I can’t even describe it.”

Fresh off the world jun-ior gold medal, Watt hopes to play for Canada again in the future. The University of Waterloo mechanical en-gineering student intends to tryout for the under-23 open national team in October and would like to dress for the Canadian senior national team one day in order to en-joy more experiences in the sport he’s fallen in love with.

“The people in ultimate are so great. Everyone is so nice and welcoming,” Watt underlines. “I want to keep playing – and keep playing for my country – for as long as I can.”

By Jon Willemsen

The Canadian open and women’s teams celebrated gold and sil-ver medal wins respectively at the World Junior Ultimate Cham-pionships in Italy. Ottawa’s Owen Watt won gold with the open team, while Camille Bedard and Natasha Cloutier were members of the national junior women’s program.

PHOTO: LUCA DIMITRI RENOLDI

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Ottawa ultimate player revels in Canada’s deciding-point junior worlds win

Ottawa’s Andrew D’Souza loved play-ing in the bright lights of the Glas-gow 2014 Common-wealth Games.



By Jon Willemsen

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5COMMUNITY CLUBS

Royals Report & Knights News

www.ottawaroyalsbaseballclub.com

Two Ottawa Royals and Knights Base-ball Club teams took the show on the road last month and earned plenty of attention at their out-of-town tournaments with big performances.

The 18U Elite Knights won the Montreal Rockies Tournament in dominant fashion, while the 13U Elite Royals placed second at the 2014 Nokoma Peewee World Series tournament in Cambridge.

In Montreal, the Knights set the tone in the championship game from the fi rst pitch onward. The bats came alive imme-diately, with the Knights scoring seven runs in the top of the fi rst inning, capped by a Connor Fitzgerald three-run home run to straight-away centre fi eld. Complemented by a Justin Silverwood two-run homer, the Knights would not take the foot off the gas pedal for the entire game, which mercifully ended with a score of 22-2, leading to the fi rst title for the 2014 edition of the 18U AAA Knights.

Earlier in the tournament, the Knights defeated two very good teams to earn their berth in the fi nal. Facing the Montreal Prospects in the opener, Kevin Park had a good start and Ryan Mount was rock-soild from the mound in relief, also contributing a three-run homer to left-centre in the 7-3 win.

In the second game, Phil Lafl èche took to the hill and dominated, surrendering only four hits in a 10-0 mercy of the host Rock-ies.

“The boys performed well all weekend, it was a total team effort,” stated Head Coach Chad Mariage. “The execution on defense was the best it has been all season, they responded well to feedback from coaches, and the bats were alive. This is a solid foun-dation from which we can build for the rest

of the season.“When we fi re on all cylinders like we did

that weekend, we are a hard team to beat.”In Cambridge at the Nokoma World Se-

ries tournament, each participating team was given a new name for the event after a Major League Baseball club.

Ottawa’s 13U Elite team took the fi eld sporting their assigned Major League affi li-ate jerseys from the Boston Red Sox, and keeping with the Red Sox spirit wore “play-off beards.”

The now Ottawa “Red Sox” won four very challenging and close games to make it through to the fi nals of the 12-team tourna-ment. Unfortunately, come the fi nal game the gas had run out and they fell short against a very strong Brampton team.

A special mention goes out to Ben Lind-gren, who won the Nokoma Home Run Derby by crushing numerous bombs out of the park!

Congratulations to the 18U Elite Ottawa Knights, the 13U Elite Ottawa Royals (Red Sox) and Ben Lindgren for their individual and collective outstanding performances to make our city proud!

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Knights champions, Royals runners-up at away tournaments

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They eventually beat the rain, the lightning and the Whitecaps, and now the East Nepean Eagles are provincial champs.

Hosting the Ontario minor di-vision championships on at South Nepean Park on a weekend where the weather didn’t cooperate much for baseball, East Nepean squeezed in a fi nal victory in the deciding game against the Oakville White-caps on Aug. 4.

Winning at home was a great sign for the Eagles group, many of whom will compete as the host team in the highly-anticipated 2015 Canadian Little League Champion-ships, whose winner will advance to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA.

“It was a little bit of a dry run for some of the people, no doubt,” says East Nepean Baseball Association president Bruce Campbell. “There’s a level of excitement because [the qualifying teams] get to play on the fi eld hosting Canadian champion-ships next year.”

The organization is eager to host the “crown jewel” event with the LLWS berth on the line for 11 and 12-year-olds, signals Campbell, em-phasizing the large amount of pre-

paratory work involved in hosting the nationals.

“We’ve been going ever since 2010. Seriously,” underlines the president of 20 years. “We’ve been working with the city, working with the province to get our legacy project in place, and a two-story me-dia building which was completed a few weeks ago.”

That legacy project was under-taken in collaboration with the Jays Care Foundation, which contributed $35,000 towards the construction of new dugouts and other improve-ments to make South Nepean Park a standout venue.

The new dugouts were offi cially opened in mid-July when past To-ronto Blue Jay legends Jason Barfi eld, Devon White and Duane Ward came to town to run clinics for participants from the Boys & Girls Club of Ottawa.

KNIGHTS WIN 2.5 OF 4 AT OTTAWA STADIUM

The Ottawa Knights played at an-other local ballpark receiving facelifts on the August long weekend. The 18U AAA Knights hosted the Ontario Outlaws for a pair of Fergie Jenkins Showcase League double-headers at the Ottawa Stadium site that will be home to the Ottawa Champions Can-

Am League baseball team come next summer.

D e s p i t e o u t h i t t i n g their oppo-nents , the Knights came away with just a 6-6 tie in the fi nal game but still took the se-ries with an opening 6-3 loss followed by 5-1 and 4-3 victories.

2015 national host Eagles win provincialsBy Michael Nellis

The East Nepean Eagles lost their fi rst contest to the Oakville White-caps but won the next 10-1 to win the double-elimi-nation provincial tournament.

PHOTO: DEAN JONCAS

6

By Josh Bell

COMMUNITY CLUBSAxemen seek return trip to lacrosse nationals in Year 2

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Second chance to dress for Canada sparks Swans Aussie rules stars

It was an opportunity they weren’t expecting, but the last-minute chance to represent Canada has got Ottawa Swans players Lisa Dalla Rosa and Roberta Kramchynsky bubbling with excite-ment for the Aug. 9-23 Australian Football International Cup in Melbourne – a major Aussie Rules tournament held only once every three years.

It was the second time Dalla Rosa got invited to play for Can-ada, but had to turn it down last time – one of the hardest deci-sions of her life, she recalls.

“Because of commitments and work, I couldn’t commit a year to the sport last year when they’d asked me,” explains the 33-year-old urban planner. “I knew I couldn’t say no again. I get goosebumps just thinking about going.

“Getting the second chance was like someone telling me, ‘You should be going. You should’ve said yes the fi rst time.’”

The trip was especially improbable because Canada was orig-inally slated to send only one women’s team to the International Cup, and AFL Canada planned to send members of the Northern Lights – the national women’s squad.

But when Papua New Guinea unexpectedly withdrew, tour-nament organizers asked if Canada could fi eld a second entry.

“We worked hard over a weekend in June to make contact with all the girls playing in Canada, and to see if we could actu-ally pull a team together on short notice,” recounts national team coach Jason Arnold, noting that the rapid response he got was a testament to the depth of the sport in Canada. “Within 48 hours, we had 25 elite players that were prepared to pay in excess of $5,000 to fl y across the world and represent their country.”

Called the Midnight Suns, the national development team is in the opposite group of the Northern Lights – whose lineup includes Swans Holly Costanza and Emily Dickinson – mean-ing they’d only meet in the fi nal. Arnold is eager to combine the teams for sightseeing in his native land, however.

After an impressive debut season in the Quebec Senior La-crosse League last season, the Ottawa Axemen have shown no signs of a sophomore jinx as they prepare to play in the league championship series.

“(The team) is defi nitely stronger this year,” says Axemen la-crosse veteran Matt Firth. “A year’s experience in the league helped our guys. It really shows you what you need to do to play at this level.

“The fi rst year, you just kind of get your feet wet. The second year, expectations go up a little bit, work ethic improves.”

The Axemen reached the Presidents Cup in their inaugural season, although the path to return to the Senior ‘B’ national championship tournament will be more diffi cult this time since only one QSSL berth is available (last year the Quebec confer-ence had two as event hosts).

After sweeping Vermont in the fi rst round with 17-10 and 18-15 wins on Aug. 2 and 3 at Howard Darwin Memorial Arena,

Ottawa will now have to get past the powerhouse Kahnawake Mohawks to advance to the Aug. 25-31 Presidents Cup in B.C. Kahnawake and Ottawa earned identical 14-2 regular-season records, with their only losses coming against one another.

“(The Presidents Cup) was a great experience,” underlines Firth, whose team went 1-5 at the 2013 nationals. “The guys learned from that.”

Backed by goaltenders Brett Perras, Chris Chuback and James Jordan and a strong defensive corps, the Axemen held their opponents to a league-low 113 goals against.

League-leading scorer Tim Bergin was a dominant offensive force, recording 101 points in 14 games. The 25-year-old former Gloucester Griffi n Jr. ‘B’ star played throughout the winter with the Niagara Lock Monsters in the Canadian Lacrosse League (CLAX), one step below the National Lacrosse League.

“I owe a lot to the CLAX league. It helped a lot with my game. I think it elevated it,” details Bergin, who’s spoken to sev-eral NLL teams about attending their training camps for next sea-son. “I think it’s anyone’s goal that plays lacrosse to play at the highest level. I’m happy to have played pro already, but the NLL would still be a step up from what I just played.”

LACROSSE COMMUNITY BACKS TEAM

The team’s skill wasn’t all that evolved in the Axemen’s sec-ond year, they also have a bigger following.

“We have a tremendous community support, number one, with close ties to the two minor lacrosse associations in Glouces-ter and Nepean,” indicates Firth, one of several Axemen who coach youth teams. “Their young guys are coming out to watch them play, which is a good motivating factor as well.”

PHOTO: DEAN JONCAS

Ottawa swept Vermont to advance to the league championship series against Kahnawake.

AUSSIE RULES go to p.7

By Jon Wellemsen

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In their fi rst foray into the Ontario Youth Soc-cer League, the Ottawa Fury under-17 girls acade-my team fell one game short of becoming provin-cial U18 girls’ champions, losing 3-1 to Waterloo United in the Aug. 2 fi nal in Mississauga.

“We played a great game, and I’d even say we had the match in our hands,” says Fury coach Jimmy Zito, whose team was victimized by OYSL leading scorer Oshay Lawes with her two goals and creation of the third. “I think we had the better team, but they had the better player. She’s been doing that for them all year. It wasn’t a one-time thing.”

The Fury earned their place in the champi-onship game against their undefeated opponents thanks to their 9-2-2 regular season, which earned them the OYSL east division crown.

Locked in a tight four-horse race for top spot, the Fury kick-started a streak of four straight shutouts to close out the regular season with 2-0 and 3-0 wins in their second and third matches on consecutive days July 20 and 21. They clinched the title with a 4-0 win on home fi eld July 26.

“No one expected us to make it this far,” Zito underlines. “(The players) have overcome a lot to have such a great, consistent season. It wasn’t like this in the beginning, but they put in the work and developed a style of play that was very successful this year.”

The Fury became just the fourth team from Eastern Ontario to ever win an OYSL division crown, all of which have come in the past three years. Fury captain Gen Klein understands fi rst-hand how tough a league the OYSL is, having

previously endured a much less successful cam-paign with another club.

“It was just brutal. We were getting creamed every game,” she recalls. “I’m surprised with how well we did this year. I always knew we could do it because we had a good team, but I didn’t expect us to do this well.

“I’m just really proud of us and how far we’ve come. It wasn’t always easy but we found a way.”

Zito notes that the title is all the more re-markable considering his side is a group of U17-aged players that competed up an age group, which wasn’t entirely by design but wound up being the best option available.

In past years, Fury youth teams have usu-ally played in the primarily U.S.-based Super-Y League, but Fury technical director Phillip Dos Santos viewed the OYSL – with its longer sea-son – as a better option, and fortunately a place was available in the U18 ranks.

“I’ve coached teams that won before in Su-per-Y, but never coached an Ontario winner,” Zito highlights. “It feels very special, and these girls deserve it after everything they did this year.”

FURY FC 3RD IN W-LEAGUE

Division champions themselves, the Fury FC senior women’s side also fi nished their sea-son one win away from a championship.

Undefeated leading up to the July 25-27 USL W-League fi nals in Florida, Ottawa’s title hopes were dashed with a 2-1 penalty-kicks de-feat to Washington in the semi-fi nals.

The Fury turned the tables two days later in their third-place contest with Charlotte, prevail-ing in 2-1, again in penalty kicks.

RACE FOR ONTARIO CROWNS

A number of local teams remain in the hunt for OYSL east division titles – the 5-3-3 Ottawa South United Force U14 girls, the 5-1-4 Force and 4-4-4 Gloucester U14 boys, the 4-3-3 OSU

U16 girls and the 7-4 defending-champion OSU U17 boys are all within fi ve points of fi rst place.

The FC Capital United U21 women par-ticipated in the championship round of Ontario Cup play, falling 2-0 to eventual champion Bur-lington in the semi-fi nals.

Fury claim OYSL division title, fall in championship game

Lisa Dalla Rosa

The Ottawa Fury captured Eastern Ontario’s fourth OYSL division title of all time.

AUSSIE RULES: Second chance for Swans

PHOTO: DEAN JONCAS

FALL REGISTRATION NOW OPEN!

7

continued from p.6

“Australia is the birthplace of footy,” he adds. “I can’t wait to show the girls all about the culture of the sport over there, and hopefully they’ll bring some of that back here with them.”

For Kramchynsky, a former soccer player, the opportunity to play for Canada in her new pursuit came quickly.

“This is only my second season play-ing Aussie Rules,” highlights the 30-year-old University of Ottawa MBA student. “I can’t believe I’m playing for my country after only two years. I just took to the sport like nothing I’d ever tried before, and developed quickly.

“I’ve never played for Canada in anything, so this will be amazing.”

The Midnight Suns will hold their fi rst practice with their full squad just days before the tournament begins.

“We haven’t had as much time to train as the other teams there, so we’ll have to play catch-up to compete with everyone,” Kram-chynsky signals. “But we don’t want to be seen as the ‘development team’ or the ‘B-team,’ we want to go out there and compete,

and I think we can catch people by surprise.”“It’s going to be the ultimate underdog

story,” Dalla Rosa concurs. “If we bring home a medal, that would be incredible, but we just want to play the best footy that we can.”

Swans players Mike Kozlowski and Nath-an Strom will compete for Northwind, the Ca-nadian men’s national team, at the event.

PHOTO PROVIDED

By Jon Wellemsen

8 OTTAWA AT THE YOUTH OLYMPICS

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It’s been on their radar for awhile now – the chance to be part of history. But that still couldn’t prepare Nepean Nighthawks players Braedon Muldoon and Liam Manning for the moment they found out they’d been chosen to play for Canada in the inaugural fi eld hockey “5s” tournament at the Aug. 16-28 Youth Ol-ympic Games in Nanjing, China.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling to make this team,” says Manning, who kept double-checking the team list in disbelief. “I don’t think I will actually start to believe that I’m going to the Youth Olympics until I’m actually on the plane. It is a dream come true.”

With a fi nal selection camp taking place just before the team was announced on July 25, the Nepean pair experienced some unsettling moments during the fi nal countdown.

“I am so grateful for this chance,” Muldoon high-lights. “The last practice we had, I thought I really didn’t do well. But I just went out there and did what I could and tried to be positive.”

Along with Nighthawks teammate Rohan Chopra, Muldoon and Manning were two of 25 hopefuls from across Canada vying for fi nal spots on the nine-player roster. Chopra and Manning helped Canada earn their berth in the Youth Olympics at a qualifying tournament earlier this season, although Muldoon missed out on that opportunity due to a concussion suffered while playing ice hockey.

Both competitive ice hockey players for many years, Muldoon and Manning have now shifted their athletic focus exclusively to fi eld hockey.

“I just loved playing fi eld hockey more, so I de-cided to stick with it and not play anything else,” ex-plains Manning, also a former soccer player. “It is a

unique sport and I liked the fi eld hockey community as a whole and the people involved in it. I love every chance I play fi eld hockey and I want to play it for as long as I can.”

Team Canada is hopeful that the “Hockey 5s” ver-sion of the game – an adaptation of the regular 11-a-side format to encourage more speed and high-scoring contests, featuring boards instead of boundary lines – is well-suited for a country that plays a similar style of game on ice.

“We have the boards, and a lot of countries don’t,” Muldoon indicates. “It gives us the edge.”

“I feel like we have a very strong team,” adds Man-ning, the only goalie on Canada’s roster. “We have all been working very hard to be able to succeed and we want to medal at these Games.”

Simply pulling on Canadian uniforms will be a treasured moment on its own, says Muldoon.

“Making this team, this ranks up there as probably the best thing I have accomplished,” signals the Mother Teresa Catholic High School student headed into his senior year. “Right now, I can honestly say that nothing comes close. I have worked hard and trained hard and I just love playing this sport. I am happy to wear the maple leaf and do my country proud.”

As Shermar Paul prepares for the biggest competition of his life, he doesn’t have to go far to fi nd advice. The 17-year-old sprinter can turn to the man who’s moulded him into the type of runner he is to-day – a member of the Canadian team ready to compete on the world stage at the Aug. 16-28 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China.

Paul enjoys a close relationship with his C.A.N.I. Athletics coach, Lyndon George, himself a former international sprinter who competed in the 1987 World Championships.

“He’s changed the way I view things,” Paul details. “He’s taught me to never be afraid of anything or anyone. Once you get to these big meets, that helps a lot. You’re there to do your busi-

ness and nothing else matters.”George has been working with his protégé on how to approach

high-pressure scenarios.“Just how to handle championship rounds, how to handle

feelings – those are important things he’s trying to learn,” George explains. “When you get to this level, you realize there are a lot of people just like you. It’s the intangibles that you bring to the table and how you handle the pressure that makes you better.”

Paul handled the stress of the Youth Olympics qualifying event quite well, earning his place through a continental competi-tion in Florida this past spring.

“He had to go through a selection process that included the United States and Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean just to

make it,” George underlines. “This is the toughest region to come out of if you’re a sprinter, and Shermar did.”

Looking back four years when he fi rst starting coaching the ambitious athlete from Nepean, even George cannot believe how strong his student has become.

“We saw him right away as someone who had an acumen for the sport, but none of us realized he’d evolve to the degree that he did,” George indicates. “He puts in the work and he’s a phenomenal specimen, physically speaking. So he’s easily ahead of his peers by a few steps, and I think we’ll see big things from this young man down the road.”

Paul enters the Youth Olympics having recently recorded a new personal-best 200 m time of 21.76 seconds from the May 30 high school east regional meet, which he beat with a wind-aided 21.54 performance to fi nish

fourth in the OFSAA provincial senior boys’ class as a Grade 11.“I want to do my best and hopefully I get a medal (at the

Youth Olympics),” signals the St. Paul Catholic High School stu-dent. “My goal is to fi nish top-8 and make the fi nal race, but I really want to be on the podium.”

Paul views racing at the Youth Olympics as the biggest op-portunity of his career.

“After all the morning practices, the noon practices, and the work I put in, this means a lot to me,” he says. “And I just can’t thank my coach enough for believing in me.”

Youth Olympics-bound sprinter & coach share bondBy Jon Willemsen Shermar Paul

Muldoon Manning


Nighthawks pair bring ice hockey skills to fi eld hockey 5s debutBy Anil Jhalli

FILE PHOTOS

9

OSU Force Academy ZoneOttawa South

United Soccer Club brought a host of unique opportunities to town for local soccer players in

recent weeks, highlighted by visits from ac-claimed international coaches.

Members of the OSU Force Academy were joined on the pitch by Kioumars Rezaie from the fabled Dallas Texans youth soccer program in the United States, as well as a pair of coaches fl own across the world from La Liga-champion Atlético Madrid’s youth academy in Spain.

“Our mindset is to always give our play-ers the best opportunities possible, so that means exposing them to all sorts of styles,” highlights OSU Club Head Coach Paul Har-ris. “And hopefully they get better from it.”

OSU has a long-standing partnership with the Texans program – rated the #1 youth club in the U.S. Texans staff have visited Ottawa annually to run training sessions at OSU for several years now.

This year, it was Rezaie making his fi rst trip to the nation’s capital. The Texans Girls Academy Technical Director says he was very impressed with the quality of players on the pitch.

“You always look at teams from around the world as rated a bit differently, but just look-ing at the ambition and drive of these young ladies, they will compete with the U.S. teams very soon – and there are some here that wouldn’t look out of place with us,” Rezaie indicates.

Rezaie hopes to have a few OSU players fl y to Dallas for further training, and to poten-tially enter the Texans fold.

“We’ve looked at a couple ages and will be contacting the club to see what we can do,” he adds. “The scenario works for us to bring these kids out, and stay for a bit and play for us, then hopefully bring back everything they learn to Ottawa South United.”

OSU PLAYERS ATTEND GOTHIA CUP

The training sessions helped provide paths to the highest level of soccer for OSU’s girls, Harris notes, while the club’s strategic alliance with the Texans also opens up op-

portunities for OSU’s top boys.David Chung and Ryan Massoud recently

returned from their stint as travelling players with the Texans squad that put in a strong showing at the 2014 Gothia Cup – the world’s largest youth soccer tournament, held annually in Sweden with around 1,500 teams from all corners of the globe.

While the Texans have hosted camps in Ottawa for some time, the Atlético Madrid camp is a new endeavour organized by Har-ris and Jim Lianos, OSU’s General Manager. The club welcomed over 100 participants, both boys and girls, for the week-long camps.

Alvaro Sayabera, a physical trainer and assistant coach in Atlético Madrid’s youth ranks, says that seeing how much the kids enjoyed his coaching made his fi rst time crossing the Atlantic Ocean into Canada worthwhile.

“The kids have had a lot of fun here,” Sayabera underlines. “Maybe they can see how to play the game in different ways for the same goal – which is playing good soccer.”

Along with the visits from world-class coaches, OSU also hosted some of the best competition available from Aug. 1-4 for its third-annual Showcase of Champions Tourna-ment, which continues to grow as Canada’s premiere college soccer showcase event.

The collection of initiatives demonstrate OSU’s commitment to seeing local soccer players maximize their abilities in the sport and open up opportunities for them to suc-ceed on a world stage, Harris notes.

“Here at OSU, we don’t hide it – we’re am-bitious as a club,” he adds. “I think for the boys and the girls, this is just another exam-ple of us trying to take it to the next level.”

World-class coaches & tournaments push OSU players to top

Dallas Texans Girls Academy Technical Director Kioumars Rezaie

Just a short time ago, Jenny Zhao would never have guessed that she’d soon be jumping on a plane for Nan-jing, China and the Youth Olympic Games. But an 11th-place fi nish at April’s FIE Cadet World Championships in Bulgaria vaulted the 17-year-old Ottawa fencer into the second edition of the Olympics for athletes under age 19.

“I can’t even put it in words,” Zhao says of earning her place on Canada’s 75-member team for the Youth Olympics. “I never even thought this was possible, so I’m really excited to get this chance.”

The women’s foil competitor believes that her lack of expectations heading into the cadet worlds may have actually helped her perform better.

“I wanted to do my best and fi nish well, but mak-ing the Youth Olympics wasn’t something I thought about,” Zhao explains. “A friend of mine went to the last Youth Olympics and told me how great it was, but then I thought I wouldn’t be ready to make it at that point, so it means a lot for me.”

Zhao remains humble about her growing list of ac-complishments, but her coach sees an extremely bright future in fencing, especially since she’s only fenced for fi ve years.

“I think this is a sign of things to come,” indicates Ottawa Fencing’s Paul ApSimon, who’s also headed to the Youth Olympics as a coach. “I think she could’ve won a medal at the World Championships, and absolute-ly I think she can win one at the Olympics.”

ApSimon believes what separates Zhao from others is her dedication in practice, as she puts in four days a

week of training, plus a hefty tournament schedule.“She’s a very fi erce competitor,” the women’s foil

national team coach highlights. “She has that drive to work in front of her, and since she wants to be better than everyone, she does everything she can to win.”

Zhao moved to Kanata from Brampton in 2010 when her father got a job in the Ottawa area, which al-lowed her to train regularly under ApSimon’s watch at the RA Centre. The Earl of March Secondary School student would like to continue working with him as a member of the Canadian senior national team (which also includes Ottawa native and ApSimon-trained Kel-leigh Ryan) in the future, and views the Youth Olympics as valuable experience in pursuit of that objective.

“I’ll be competing against the best in the world for my age category, and if I do well, then that’s a huge bo-nus,” Zhao signals. “My main goal is to get better from the tournament and then qualify for the Junior World Championships next year, so experience now will help.”

Rising fencing phenom a medal threatBy Jon Willemsen

Target: Nanjing

Unveiled later than his fellow Ottawa athletes as a member of the Canadian team, Ottawa’s Eric Peters is set to compete at the Youth Olympics in archery. It will be the 17-year-old’s second trip to China in as many years, having gone to Wuxi last fall for the World Youth Archery Championships, where he was the top Canadian in two competitions, fi nishing 33rd in the Youth Olympics qualifying event. “I wanted to try the sport because it was something different,” says the RA Centre-trained athlete. “It’s probably one of the hardest sports to get into. It’s not easy to start with, it never becomes easy, and you need to stick with it for a long time before you start to see yourself progress.”

Jenny Zhao

PHOTO PROVIDED


OTTAWA AT THE YOUTH OLYMPICS

10

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When Pamphinette Buisa fi rst touched a rugby ball fi ve years ago, she nev-er would have imagined it would lead her to Nanjing, China and an opportunity to play for Canada’s women’s

rugby sevens team at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games.

“It’s an honour to actually get to play for my country,” says the Ottawa Irish Rugby Club play-er from Gatineau. “After all those times thinking about how rugby was going to go, now I get to do something not many people get to do.”

Originally a basketball player when she was younger, Buisa was pulled into rugby in Grade 7 by her school team’s coach. The Heritage Col-lege CEGEP student played for the Quebec pro-vincial team and got onto Rugby Canada’s radar, eventually making it through selections onto the fi nal 12-player roster for Nanjing.

Buisa spends plenty of her time honing her skills in Ottawa, often under the watch of local rugby guru Jen Boyd, who runs elite develop-ment camps for Ottawa region athletes on behalf of Rugby Canada – one of the many coaching hat she wears.

“She works so hard and she has all the physi-cal attributes to be an elite rugby player, so now

she fi nally gets a chance to kind of show what she has,” Boyd highlights, calling Buisa one of her most dedicated athletes.

Combined with physical gifts that separate her from her peers, Boyd believes Buisa can be an impact player internationally for the Youth Ol-ympics squad.

“She has got power that not a lot of young girls have,” underlines the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees coach. “She’s very physically mature. I imagine her power and pace will make her stand out even at that level.”

The lone player from the area named to the Youth Olympics squad, Buisa feels confi dent in the Canadian team’s abilities even though they aren’t training with one another all the time.

“I think we really bonded during the camp process, so we all got to know each other really well going through something like that,” signals the 17-year-old. “I’m nervous because it’s such a big tournament and all the eyes are on you from people watching you, but I’m also so excited be-cause I know the team that we have is fantastic.”

It will be a short, intense Aug. 17-20 tour-nament for rugby sevens – which makes its Ol-ympic debut at the Rio 2016 Games – and Buisa believes Canada is up to the task.

“We’re defi nitely trying to bring home the gold,” she indicates. “If we play as a team and do everything well on offence and on defence, I think we’ll do really well.”

Ottawa Irish star can be impact player internationally, coach says

By Jon Willemsen

FILE PHOTO

Bronze medals from the recent National Triathlon Championships in Magog, Que. are about the only things Ottawa’s Samantha Klus and David Blair have in common.

At very different points in their triathlon careers, Klus and Blair both competed at the July 20 event with an eye on earning a trip to Edmonton for the junior and para world cham-pionships respectively during the Aug. 26-Sept. 1 ITU World Triathlon Grand Final.

A former soccer player, Klus’ fi rst triathlon race was seven years ago. The Bytown Storm club athlete has appeared at the junior worlds, and collected 2013 silver and 2014 national junior bronze medals.

At the recent nationals, Klus fi nished the swim within 10 seconds of the leader and broke away to cycle the hilly course with two other Quebec competitors, heading into the run more than a minute ahead of the rest of the pack.

“In the run, I struggled and couldn’t keep up with those girls from Quebec,” recounts Klus, who was hobbled by shin splints last season. “My goal was to go for gold but I am pretty happy with the bronze. Sure there is room for improve-ment but I am headed in the right direction.”

The 19-year-old University of Ottawa hu-man kinetics student will learn if she’s selected for the junior worlds in mid-August.

PARALYMPIC ROWER TRIES TRI

After earning his stripes in rowing and rep-resenting Canada at the London 2012 Paralym-pics, Blair managed to score bronze and gold medals in only his third career triathlon in Ma-gog.

Doubling as an ITU World Paratriathlon event, Blair was the third athlete – behind two Americans – to cross the fi nish line in the men’s visually-impaired category, and the top Cana-dian.

“It’s surreal,” says Blair, who was born with albinism and is legally blind. “I am going

to worlds and it is only my fourth competition.”It was an injury, in a roundabout way, that’s

helped Blair fi nd early success as a triathlete. The winter is long for an Ottawa rower, and much of that time – three or four hours a day, Blair notes – is spent on a rowing ergometre.

“Rowing machines are hard on your body and I had been getting injured,” he highlights the 22-year-old Carleton University humani-ties student. “So, after London, I would go and train with coach Michel Elibani and the Cana-dian para triathlon team as a way to keep up my fi tness level.”

Swimming remains Blair’s biggest chal-lenge out of the three disciplines.

“Rowing taught me to fi nd pain and stay there. There are lots of good qualities from my fi rst sport,” signals the 2011 para rowing world championships silver medalist, however nothing prepared him to swim through a mass of human-ity tethered to his guide by a one-metre rope.

The swim in Magog was particularly rough.“It could have gone better,” states Blair,

who is guided by Adam Jones, a former Ottawa resident now based in Sherbrooke. “We lost the group about one minute into the swim because I got a fat lip from an elbow to the right.”

The collision sent Blair and his guide on a longer tangent and they were second-last to get out of the water. But the pair cycled themselves to a sixth-place position and then crossed the fi nish line for a bronze medal after a 16-minute, 50-second run on a course that was shorter than the prescribed 5 km length.

It was an impressive performance for the newcomer, but the success Blair has quickly found in triathlon doesn’t mean he’s about to turn his back on rowing, however, with the next Paralympics coming up in two years’ time.

“I want to set a record that no one can take from me,” he smiles. “I want to compete at Rio in both rowing and tri!”

Ottawa played host to the Triathlon Ontario Provincial Championships on Aug. 2 at Mooney’s Bay. Results were not available as of press time.

Paralympic rower qualifi es for triathlon worlds, Storm athlete in limbo

David Blair

OTTAWA AT THE YOUTH OLYMPICS

Pamphinette Buisa

By Anne Duggan

FILE PHOTO

11

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regulates and connects Massage Therapy in sports throughout the country and aims to educate athletes, parents and on the benefi ts of sports massage. Massage, in relation to sports:

PREVENTS muscle and tendon injuries.REDUCES the strain and discomfort of

training and chronic strain patterns, allowing a quicker return to maximum training levels.

ENABLES the athlete to recover more quickly from myofascial injury with less chance of chronic problems returning.

PROVIDES psychological boosts to the athlete, consistent with his or her commit-ment to high performance.

ENHANCES a preventive approach to athletic training whereby soft tissues are free of trigger points and adhesions, thus contributing toward the improvement of peak neuromuscular functioning.

PRE-EVENT massage stimulates cir-culation, calms nervous tension, and pre-pares the athlete for optimal performance while reducing the chances of injury.

POST-EVENT massage helps in recov-ery from hard training and competition.

TRAINING massage focuses on the pre-vention of developing chronic injuries and aids in the healing process of current ones.

Ottawa’s Long-Term Athlete Develop-ment Leaders for Over 10 Years, Sport-sCan helps piece together your athletic success – from nutrition to strength & conditioning, to mental training, to video analysis programs and athletic therapy. Learn more at sportscan.ca or contact us at [email protected] .

What is Massage Therapy?

They’ve shown their strength at both the pro-vincial and national levels this season, and now a trio from the Ottawa National Diving Club will get to test themselves internationally thanks to their strong showings at the July 11-13 Canadian Junior Development Championships in Montreal.

Emma Corrigan, Timothy Lewis and Kathryn Grant all earned their tickets to December’s CAMO International meet, again in Montreal.In his second national championships, Lewis placed 8th in the 3 metre event, 4th for platform and 5th in 1 m.

“I was really, really happy with how I did,” smiles the bright 10-year-old who’s found the key to dealing with big-competition pressure. “I just dance, dance and dance to get rid of the nerves.”

Lewis has also trained in gymnastics, which goes hand-in-hand with diving and was helpful when he moved into his new water pursuit, he details.

“You fl y through the air in diving,” notes the Elmdale Public School student who enjoys the chal-lenge of diving. “You learn so many fun things. A lot of twists and fl ips and other stuff that makes it so fun.”

Grant equalled Lewis’ best showing by fi nish-ing 4th on platform to go with 3 m 6th and 1 m 15th-place results, while Corrigan did what she needed to do to sneak into a qualifying position for the international meet, placing 13th in the 3 m event and 12th for both 1 m and platform.

“I knew what to expect after last year,” under-lines Corrigan, a 11-year-old second-time nation-als competitor. “I knew the competitors and it was such an awesome experience.”

By Anil Jhalli

3 Ottawa National club divers reach international stage

SPORTSPAGE SNAPSHOTSDECORATED OTTAWA ROWING CLUB ATHLETES SET TO CHASE

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS GLORY FOR CANADAOttawa Rowing Club members Cristy Nurse and Kate Goodfellow will arrive at the Aug. 24-Sept. 1 World Championships in Amsterdam with numerous medals already in their bag from World Cup stops this season. Most recently, Nurse won gold with the Canadian women’s 8 at a mid-July event in Lucerne, Switzerland, while Goodfellow took silver in the women’s quad. Both were medalists at last year’s World Championships. See SportsOttawa.com for full coverage.

LOCAL PADDLERS EXCEL ON GLOBAL CANOE-KAYAK STAGESThe Rideau Canoe Club’s Megan Sibthorpe earned the top result out of local paddlers com-peting in the July 17-20 Jr./U23 ICF World Championships in Hungary, earning a fourth-place in the C-2 U23 women’s 500 m. Ottawa’s Natasha O’Connell won a bronze medal at the Canoe Slalom Pan American Sports Festival in Mexico. Ottawa River Runner C-1 athletes Alexandra McGee and Cam Smedley both advanced through to the semi-fi nal round at canoe slalom World Cup #4 on Aug. 1 in Spain.

OTTAWA TO HOST 2017 & 2018 CANADIAN TRACK-AND-FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPSOn the opening day of Athletics Week in Ottawa at Terry Fox Athletic Facility, the city was unveiled as upcoming host of the 2017 and 2018 Canadian Junior / Senior Track and Field Championships. Organized Athletics Canada, the City of Ottawa, Ottawa Tourism and the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club, the event will bring around 1,500 athletes to the nation’s capital while Canada celebrates its 150th birthday.

2 LOCAL OVFL FOOTBALL TEAMS YET TO LOSE IN 2014 SEASONThe Varsity Myers Riders completed a perfect 8-0 Ontario Varsity Football League regular season and then beat Toronto 41-6 in the fi rst playoff round. The Jr. Varsity Riders lost just once this season – to the 8-0 Cumberland Panthers. Both teams have since won their open-ing playoff games and are poised for a rematch. Cumberland and Myers were also victorious in Bantam playoff games, while the Varsity Panthers were the fi rst local team to bite the dust with a 41-37 playoff defeat to Toronto.

ZUSSMAN, TEAM CANADA OPEN WITH WIN AT RUGBY WORLD CUPOttawa’s Julianne Zussman and the Canadian women’s rugby team opened their 2014 Women’s Rugby World Cup with a decisive 31-5 victory over Spain in France. Canada will face Samoa on Aug. 5 and England on Aug. 9 to wrap up pool play.

YOUNG OTTAWA SOCCER PLAYER TO DRESS FOR COSTA RICA AT CONCACAF U15 TOURNEY

Following a two-week training camp, 13-year-old dual Canadian/Costa Rican citizen Carmen Marin of Ottawa was offi cially selected to play for the Central American nation’s under-15 girls’ national team for the Aug. 6-17 CONCACAF continental championship in Caymen Islands.

32ND-PLACE FINISH FOR OTTAWA FENCER AT WORLDSOttawa’s Kelleigh Ryan placed 32nd out of 86 competitors in the women’s foil competition at the July 15-23 FIE Fencing World Championships in Russia. The 27-year-old was also 11th in the women’s team foil event.

3 MORE LOCAL BASKETBALL PLAYERS TO WEAR TEAM CANADA STRIPES THIS SUMMER

Carleton Ravens guards Philip and Thomas Scrubb were chosen to play for the Canadian senior men’s basketball national team for a series of 11 exhibition games in Europe from July 24-Aug. 12. Ravens coach Dave Smart is an assistant for the team. Ottawa native Eddie Ekiyor will also wear Canadian colours for the cadet national side set to compete in the Aug. 8-16 U17 FIBA World Championships in Dubai. That team’s

coach is Ottawa’s David DeAveiro.

FORMER GLOUCESTER SYNCHRO ATHLETE CRACKS CANADA’S JR. WORLDS RANKSSynchro Canada offi cially unveiled 17-year-old Ottawa native Madeline Walker-Byron as a member of the 2014 junior national team one day before beginning competition at the July 30-Aug. 3 FINA World Junior Synchro Championships in Helsinki. Canada placed sixth in the team event.

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After fi nishing 11th in her Olympic debut at age 21, Otta-wa-based modern pentathlete Melanie McCann had already set her sights on the next Summer Games.

There were many stops to be

made along the road to Rio 2016, however, including the upcom-ing Sept. 1-9 UPIM Senior World Championships in Warsaw, Po-land, which McCann enters fresh off a career-best performance at the Pan American Champion-ships.

McCann earned a silver in the women’s competition at the late-July event in Mexico City, fi nishing on the heels of London 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Yane Marques of Brazil, and took gold with Joshua Riker-Fox as mixed relay champions.

“It was awesome,” re-counts McCann, who will be a strong medal contender come next summer’s Pan Am Games in Toronto. “The best part was hearing the Canadian anthem on top of the podium on the fi nal day of the competition.”

The 18th-place fi nisher at early June’s World Cup Final in Florida feels confi dent head-ing into the World Champion-ships, noting she’s got a solid fi tness base for the swimming and running portions of the

fi ve-sport competition.“This time of year is really

about honing the technical skills,” highlights the athlete who moved to Ottawa four years ago to train under national team coach John Hawes. “So I’m spending a lot of time with the fencing style, and also the shooting and riding.”

It’s a long break between Ol-ympics, but McCann remains just as eager to continue to etch her name as one of the world’s best on her sport’s biggest stage.

“I’m really excited for the World Championships, that’s sort of the top event of the year and the most anticipated one of the season in terms of all the competi-tors, so I can’t wait,” underlines the 24-year-old. “After a few good results this year, I’m feeling confi dent and ready to show them what I’ve got.”

Rockland’s Mathea Stevens, who also trains under Hawes lo-cally, placed 12th in the individu-al race at the Pan Am Champion-ships and teamed up with fellow Canadian Donna Vakalis to win bronze in the women’s relay.

Career-best Pan Am result boosts modern pentathlete before worlds

By Josh Bell

FILE PHOTO

Melanie McCann

13ELITE

Olympic Committee’s executive board in 2013.The expulsion spurred aggressive changes to a

sport that dates back to ancient times and consist-ently preferred tradition over evolution. Wrestling was ultimately voted back in ahead of other sports seeking inclusion.

Given the result, Wiebe believes that getting the Olympic boot proved highly constructive.

“It was like the best thing to happen to wres-tling since wrestling was created,” the 25-year-old enthuses. “No, I don’t know about that, but hon-estly, what occurred in the aftermath – there have been so many huge, positive changes.”

The FILA international sport governing body implemented harsh new rules against stalling and passivity, and introduced cumulative scoring through each period so that wrestlers wouldn’t wait around for majority of the round before at-tacking at the last moment.

“I think the new rules really promote wres-tling, and promote my style of wrestling,” indi-cates Wiebe, who frequently stops at home when she’s crossing Ottawa on her way back to Calgary, running local wrestling clinics occasionally.

“Now the onus is to put points on the board and create action and scoring,” she adds. “We’re seeing more exciting matches, and more wrestling happening. It’s so positive for our sport.”

Wiebe’s fi nal match at the Commonwealth Games was representative of the old world meet-ing the new world. Her Indian opponent’s strategy was to attempt wristlocks and arm bars while try-ing to push Wiebe out of the circle with size or simply lull her to sleep, while the wrestler wear-ing red brought outstanding athleticism to the mat, employing exceptional quickness to go after op-ponents’ legs, and possessing the fi tness to main-tain a high tempo for a full match.

“Erica can drop down and untie your shoe-lace, or she can reach up and grab your arm and shoulder-throw you in the same moment,” notes Vierling, explaining why Wiebe excels in wres-tling’s new climate. “She scrambles so well when someone attacks her, she’ll get a leg or redirect like a bullfi ghter and she’s back on them.

“That’s what we want from our athletes – con-tinuous wrestling. She’s a good example of the type of wrestler we want in the national program. She’s truly an all-around athlete.”

TREASURED MOMENT

Wiebe played it safe in her fi nal match with the gold medal on the line, but eventually earned the just result by catching the Indian for a pinfall an instant before the fi rst period fi nished. She rose from the mat with an enormous smile, pointed to the maple leaf on her chest, high-fi ved her coaches and then took a victory lap around the mat with the Canadian fl ag.

“You watch Olympics or any sports event, and I’ve always wanted to be that person carrying the fl ag around the mat, or running around the track,” Wiebe says, the smile as wide as ever. “To have that moment for myself... It’s the fi rst time I did this at a big event.

“And I’ve never had my anthem played on the podium. The moment I got on the podium, I was just like, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ It was amazing. That was what I was wrestling for.”

continued from p.1

GLASGOW 2014: First O Canada on podium

After several lowly seasons, the future looks a little brighter for the Gloucester Rang-ers and Cumberland Grads of the Central Canada Jr. ‘A’ Hockey League.

A combined entry of the east-end teams’ top prospects, called the Cougars, won the inaugural spring/summertime Central De-velopment Hockey League title on July 13.

The Cougars downed a traveling team from Wellington, Ont. in a thrilling 4-3 season-ending tournament fi nal, with team-leading scorer Branden Makara producing the winner in the last moments of overtime to complete his hat trick.

“My coaches put a lot of trust in me, and I tried to do the best I could with that ice time,” says Makara, a Rangers and Ottawa 67’s draft pick who scored 22 points in 17 CDHL games. “After all that hard work during the year, scor-ing that OT goal was a cherry on top.”

For CCHL commissioner Kevin Abrams, the thrilling fi nal game provided a satisfying end to the new initiative.

“To be honest, we didn’t really know how everything would work out since we’d never done this before,” Abrams signals. “But after watching how much the players grew and hearing the positive feedback from players and coaches, I don’t think there’s any doubt this idea was a huge success.”

The nine-week league spurred from league discussions with clubs about their de-sire to introduce young local players to their organizations and systems as early as possible.

“Our coaches have been wondering ways to keep their prospects in the fold over the summer so they can develop,” Abrams ex-plains. “And with so many players looking for spring hockey leagues as well, we thought a league like this would make a lot of sense.”

Gloucester head coach Sylvain Favreau, who also manned the bench for the cham-pion Cougars, was a fan of the new CDHL, since they previously wouldn’t see their prospects for a full year after drafting them.

“Now, it gives us an opportunity to get to know them and they get to know us,” high-lights Favreau, who felt reassured in his club’s talent-development system and to know that help is on the way for his team that’s missed the playoffs three years in a row.

“I think you’ll see the pendulum swing with teams like (Gloucester), where they have a good young base of talent coming up,” Abrams predicts. “I think they’ll start to rise up the standings soon.”

East-end Jr. ‘A’ prospects win 1st CDHL crown

Water polo players make noise for Team Canada

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Already a dream season for three local provin-cial and national champions, Euan Scoffi eld, Du-san Boskovic and Yorek Hurrelmann continued to rake in the accolades in July, earning a bronze medal with Team Canada at the Junior Pan Ameri-can Water Polo Championships in California.

“I feel proud to have been on the team,” Scoffi eld says by e-mail from Istanbul, where his journey is set to get even better as he prepares to play at his fi rst FINA Youth World Champion-ships.

Scoffi eld had a pair of familiar faces with him for the junior event in Ottawa Titans teammates Boskovic and Hurrelmann, and the same will be true for the youth worlds with fellow Titans Colin Colterjohn and Aleksa Gardijan. The rest of the Canadian side hails from all corners of the coun-try.

“Our team only had three weeks to train to-gether for (the Pan Am) tournament,” highlights Scoffi eld. “For a group of athletes who don’t usu-ally play with each other throughout, this was a challenge. Coming third was really an accom-plishment. “

Having played up an age group with the Ca-nadian junior team, the 18-year-old was still eligi-ble to join the younger national team for the Aug. 2-10 event in Turkey.

“Worlds is going to be a much bigger tourna-

ment than Pan Ams,” Scoffi eld underlines. “Every game is going to be harder than the last and there will be no time to relax in this tournament.”

It’s been quite the experience already traveling to Eastern Europe, the world’s water polo hotbed.

“While I was in Budapest, I got to see how in countries like Hungary, water polo is to them like hockey is to Canada,” Scoffi eld recounts. “Kids would come up to us and ask for pictures because to them we are a big deal.”

There were a number of other local water polo players who took big steps forward in their pursuit of future national team opportunities.

An impressive stable of 10 Capital Wave Wa-ter Polo Club players – Floranne Carroll, Jewelle Crocker, Madeline Hemstreet, Case Langevin, Megan MacCormac, Emma McGinnis, Valeria Rojas, Jillian Stringer, Katie Allerton and Adele Scarlett – along with the Titans’ Lotte Hurrelmann competed for Ontario in Water Polo Canada’s 2014 Youth Cup July 12-20 in Montreal.

Competing on the boys’ side of the Youth Cup were Capital Wave’s Sean Legg and Aidan Kron-berg, and the Titans’ Dmitry Prokoptsov, Raphael Siegel and Laurent Brosseau.

Rodrigo and Veronica Rojas were part of the Ontario coaching staffs at the event, while their father, Capital Wave club head coach Celso Rojas was an assistant for the Canadian women’s team that also won bronze at the Pan Am Champion-ships.

By Jon Willemsen

By Ali Rodriguez

PHOTO PROVIDED

CDHL-championCougars

14

The Ottawa Sportspage is a volunteer-driven newspaper devoted to shining a spotlight on local amateur sport.

City Councillors Tim Tierney, Rainer Bloess, Bob Monette, Maria McRae, Peter Hume, Jan Harder, Mathieu Fleury, David Chernushenko, Katherine Hobbs, Mark Taylor & Scott Moffatt, Mayor Jim Watson, Members of Provincial Parliament Grant Crack,Phil McNeely, Yasir Naqvi, John Fraser, Bob Chiarelli & Madeleine Meilleur, and Photographer Dean Joncas.

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organizations and businesses for backing Ottawa’s vibrant sports community, and we encourage you to support these groups.

To learn more about becoming an advertising partner of the Ottawa Sportspage, [email protected]

The Ottawa Sportspage is a volunteer-driven newspaper devoted to shining a spotlight on local amateur sport.

City Councillors Tim Tierney, Rainer Bloess, Bob Monette, Maria McRae, Peter Hume, Jan Harder, Mathieu Fleury, David Chernushenko, Katherine Hobbs, Mark Taylor & Scott Moffatt, Mayor Jim Watson, Members of Provincial Parliament Grant Crack,Phil McNeely, Yasir Naqvi, John Fraser, Bob Chiarelli & Madeleine Meilleur, and Photographer Dean Joncas.

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EDITORIAL

Mailing address:902 Pinecrest Rd.

Ottawa, Ont. K2B 6B3

The Ottawa Sportspage is printed on the fi rst Tues-day of the month by Ot-tawa Sports Media, the locally-owned and op-erated publisher of the Ottawa Sportspage newspaper & SportsOttawa.com. Lo-cal sports news from high schools, universities, com-munity clubs and elite ama-teur sport is the name of our game. We’re at The Heart-beat of the Ottawa Sports Community.

Contact:Editor: Dan Plouffe

[email protected]

Team of the Month: Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club Jr. Provincial Championships TeamTeam Members: Charifa Labarang, Lindsay Brandys, Colle Thompson, Larissa Brown, Gabrielle Campeau, Caitlin Fischer, Nafthalia Lucien, Reilly Jones, Elizabeth Comeau, Sydney Currier, Sarah Jackson, Kathryn David, Maggie Scheunert, Talia Brennan, Jenna Hickey, Alexia Lamothe, Clara Phillips, Hailey McKechnie, Shyvonn Roxborough, Alexandra Telford, Emily Sprague, Olivia Leon, Lindsay Hemstock, Leanna Garcia, Tanya Coulter, Taylor Currier, Austin White, Ethan Goodchild, Philip Chau, Stephen Evans, Matthew Bedard, Adam Richardson, Arjun Walia, Justin Desrosier, Jonathan Favero, Farah Abdulkarim, Tommy Somer-ville, Alexander Kerzner, Kevin M’Pindou, Geo� rey Lawson, Connor Dobson, Mitchell Frizzell, Yvan Ntivumbura, Steve Nkusi, Emmet Wallace, Zachary Kerr, David Mwakatapanya & Tanner Van Every.

About: The host Ottawa Lions were dominant at the July 19-20 Athletics Ontario Junior Championships, scoring double as many points (for top individual and relay placements) than any other club in the province. The Lions beat the second-place University of Toronto club by a 209-102 margin. She wasn’t part of the pro-vincials team, but the Lions’ Erinn Stenman-Fahey competed on a bigger stage last month at the IAAF World Junior Championships in fabled Eugene, OR, advanc-ing through the women’s 800 m heats with a personal-best time of 2:06.96 before bowing out in the semi-� nal round. See SportsOttawa.com for full coverage.

Athlete of the Month: Connor BywaySport: Cycling

Club: Ottawa Bicycle Club

School: Earl of March SS

About: One of two 16-year-olds on the � ve-member Ca-nadian team, Ottawa’s Connor Byway is set to compete at the Aug. 8-12 UCI Track Junior World Championships in Seoul, South Korea. Having completed a pre-compe-tition camp in Pennsylvania, the national junior men’s time trial silver medalist and his Canadian teammates will be looking to earn a top-8 � nish in the men’s team pursuit event.

To nominate Stars of the Month, go to SportsOttawa.com and follow the link on the right-hand bar under the Stars of the Month feature. Courtesy of the Ottawa Sportspage and the YMCA-YWCA of the National Capital Region, the selected Athlete of the Month will receive a free one-week Fam-ily Pass to the Y, while each member of the Team of the Month will receive free one-visit passes.

YMCA-YMCA OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

STARS OF THE MONTH

Energizer Erika keeps swimming faster and fasterOTTAWA AT THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES

Ottawa native Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson came within a narrow margin of reaching the Commonwealth Games podium, however the 19-year-old’s massive improvements to her personal-best times were anything but marginal.

The individual medley swimming special-ist knocked over three seconds off her previous best performance in the women’s 400-metre IM, clocking in at 4:36.88 to place fourth, just .53 away from a bronze medal.

“My goal this year was to break 4:40, so to go four seconds under that, I’m pretty ecstatic,” beams Seltenreich-Hodgson, who took part in the FIRST medal event of the Games’ swimming competition on July 24. “The energy was a huge part of it, and knowing the competition are top world-ranked athletes and knowing that I’m capable of being a part of them. And I think today I was.”

There is a notable contrast between the former Nepean-Kanata Barracudas and Great-er-Ottawa Kingfi sh swimmer and her fellow competitors, however. Typically, internation-al-level athletes setting new personal-bests will only improve their marks by tiny frac-tions, and new barriers are established only oc-casionally, but Seltenreich-Hodgson continues to show an uncanny ability to consistently pro-duce signifi cantly faster performances. And best of all, she feels like that won’t stop any time soon.

“I like to think I’ve just arrived on the scene and I want to improve in the next couple of years towards the Olympics. Obviously that’s my goal,” signals the University of British Co-lumbia Thunderbird who claimed Canadian In-teruniversity Sport’s swimmer of the year award in her rookie season.

“And I just went into university, so my training has changed and got quite a bit harder, and I’ve started doing more strengthening,” she adds. “This year, I’ve worked a lot more towards the goal of

swimming fast, and not just making the (national) team. I think I’m going to keep on improving.”

With her parents in the stands, Seltenreich-Hodgson again showed off the fruits of her la-bour at the other end of the country in the July 27 200 m IM, placing fi fth and lopping another half-second off her PB.

“I’m defi nitely happy. It’s a lot of nerves and a lot of pressure being up on these kind of stages. To be able to perform well is defi nite-

ly a plus, and now I know I can build on that next year,” indicates the swimmer who reached the semi-fi nals in her debut at the FINA World Aquatics Championships last summer. “And I’m also really excited because I’m going to eat dessert tonight.”

Seltenreich-Hodgson reveled in the experi-ence of her fi rst international multi-sport games, not the least of which was the tasty chocolate muffi ns that had been taunting her all week in

the athletes’ village cafeteria.“The whole experience has been great,” the

John McCrae Secondary School grad highlights. “Living in an athletes’ village was the fi rst thing, and then being with all these world-class ath-letes is all new and exciting for me.

“It’s really cool seeing the diversity of all the countries and people here. And it’s cool seeing the other Canadian athletes from other sports. I love it.”

Sultana Frizell was the women’s hammer throw champion and record breaker, but the 2015 Commonwealth Games weren’t quite as golden for the other four Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club athletes representing Canada in Glasgow.

Women’s 800-metre runner Melissa Bishop did enjoy a fairly satisfying performance, winning her round 1 heat and later auto-qualifying for the fi nal through the semis.

“The ultimate goal was to get into the fi nal,” the 25-year-old Eganville native notes. “Anything better than that would have been a bonus.”

In the fi nal, Bishop got stuck run-ning in lane 2 for the vast majority of the race until she got bounced back inside for the homestretch. The Lon-don 2012 Olympian came through in a respectable time of 2 minutes, 2.61 seconds that covered much more than 800 m, but she couldn’t navigate through the mass of bodies stuck in

front of her, placing 8th out of 8.“It’s tough sometimes when

you’re in a race like that,” says Bish-op, who took some solace in know-ing that she was just as fi t as any of the fi nalists. “You live and you learn. I was really hoping to get on that po-dium, but it was just not my day un-

fortunately.”Men’s T54 1,500 m wheelchair

racer Josh Cassidy also had medal hopes but was a victim of a spectacu-lar Scottish shower during the sprint to the fi nish, placing sixth.

“I just lost my grip,” recounts the 29-year-old two-time Paralympian. “I

thought I had my rain situation fi gured out pretty good until I kind of maxed out my speed and I was slipping.”

Mike Robertson and the Cana-dian men’s 4x400 m relay team were all smiles when they came through the media zone after placing second in their heat to reach the fi nal. The 25-year-old relay anchor was quite satisfi ed to have outlasted the Austral-ian battling for the second qualifi ca-tion position, for staying on the heels of London 2012-champion Bahamas, and for remaining relaxed in the high-pressure environment.

“As you mature as an athlete and gain experience, everything goes towards (feeling more calm under stress),” signals Robertson, who placed 21st of 52 in the men’s 400 m earlier.

Later, the Canadians learned that they were one of three teams in the heat disqualifi ed for starting their run too early outside the exchange zone.

Segun Makinde watched from the stands as the same DQ result occurred

for the 4x100 m relay group. Canada was in a fi ght for the silver medal heading into the homestretch but did not complete the fi nal baton handoff.

“It’s tough,” says Makinde, who was in the same role as team alternate as he was at the 2012 Olympics when Canada was also disqualifi ed. “It kind of brings back memories a little bit, but we just need to work out whatever it is we need to work out, and come back stronger.”

Despite winning silver at the Ca-nadian Championships, Makinde also wasn’t one of the three Canadians to race in the 200 m since Athletics Can-ada didn’t change their list of entrants submitted before the nationals.

“My season was going really well,” notes Makinde, who headed off for meets in Denmark, Belgium and Sweden after the Common-wealth Games. “I felt like I was get-ting ready for something really big. Fortunately I’m not done yet, so hopefully I’ll get some performances that I’m chasing after.”

2 Lions reach fi nals, 2 more DQed in Commonwealth track


The Ottawa Lions’ Josh Cassidy sprayed his way to sixth place in a wet T54 men’s 1,500 m wheelchair race fi nal on July 31 at Hampden Park.

By Dan Plouffe

By Dan Plouffe

15

Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson


16 OTTAWA AT THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES

Sultana Frizell had it going on at the Commonwealth Games. The Ottawa Lions hammer thrower was a Glasgow 2014 gold medalist, one of four Canadians to break Games records, and maybe the most enter-taining athlete of the bunch, with dance moves to boot.

The 29-year-old Perth, Ont. na-tive surely has a career waiting for her in stand-up comedy if the ham-mer throwing thing doesn’t work out. Frizell’s tale about her luggage not ar-riving for a pre-Games camp in Por-tugal and being forced to throw in her bathing suit had the media in stitches, and her recent interview about her background in fi gure skating is abso-lutely classic (see SportsOttawa.com for the link).

But it certainly looks like she won’t be looking for alternate work any time soon. The 29-year-old ex-ceeded her own Commonwealth Games record distance from Delhi 2010 on fi ve of her six fi nal-round throws, establishing a new bench-mark of 71.97 metres.

The throw wasn’t far off her per-sonal and season-best of 75.73 m, although Frizell wasn’t entirely satis-fi ed with her performance.

“I was feeling in good form and I thought I was going to do a little bit more, but it wasn’t in the tank,” says the only competitor who broke the 70 m barrier at the event. “But it just shows what kind of shape I’m in. Even when I’m having an off-day, I can still go out there and almost throw 72 metres in the fi nal.

“Going into (2015) worlds and (2016) Olympics, that is a very good projection for me, and that’s what I expect of myself over the next couple of years.”

With two more competitions on tap after her July 28 victory, the hold-er of the world’s fourth-longest throw this season had initially planned to go

back to her training base in Kamloops, B.C. prior to the end of the Games, but later decided she’d like to enjoy herself in Scotland, a special place for the hammer throwing bunch.

That change proved especially fruitful when the Canadian delegation leaders called Frizell in to tell her the fl ag bearer news.

“They took me into a room and there were all these dark faces looking at me, and they were like, ‘Sultana, we have to tell you something,’” re-counts the storytelling extraordinaire.

“Everyone was stone-faced, so I was like, ‘Oh my God, did somebody die?’ And then they told me, ‘We nominated you for fl ag bearer and you won.’”

Frizell says the news was “a true shock,” especially given the perform-ance of rhythmic gymnast Patricia Bezzoubenko – the Games’ most dec-orated athlete with fi ve gold medals and a bronze – she adds.

“But I was very happy about it for sure,” Frizell underlines. “I hope I def-initely represented our team well car-rying the fl ag out there. I held it high because I was truly proud of Canada.”

And then, with her closing cer-emony duties complete, Frizell was unleashed on Hampden Park like one of her record-breaking throws.

“I danced the crap out of that room,” she laughs. “We defi nitely rocked that place. We were in the middle amongst all the dancers, so I’m sure there will be highlight reels of us going ridiculous in there and really showing what Canada’s all about – fun-loving people having a good time.”

Lions record-breaker bears Canadian fl ag in style at Games closing ceremonyBy Dan Plouffe

CatCh your Canadian Champion Carleton ravens take on Competition from south of the border.

Aug. 11 vs. IndIAnA 6pmAug. 12 vs. vermont 6pm

Aug. 14 vs. IllInoIs At ChICAgo 7pmAug. 16 vs. memphIs 7pm

Aug. 19 vs. mAnhAttAn 6pm (women)Aug. 19 vs. memphIs 8pm

tiCkets available at Goravens.Ca or [email protected] 520 2600 x5511

ravens vs. nCaa

Hammer thrower Sultana Frizell draped herself in the maple leaf after winning gold in record fashion, then later got to carry the Canadian fl ag into the stadium for the closing ceremony.

STEVE KINGSMAN

Ottawa Sportspage

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