Ottawa Sportspage

It was a showcase moment for local cycling as the nation’s capital hosted the Global Relay Canadian Road Championships from June 25-29, with Ottawa riders flexing their muscles to win a pile of prizes on their home courses at Tunney’s Pasture, Gatineau Park and downtown Aylmer.

The local headliners included:

MIKE WOODS

Though he had the most mediocre result out of the star locals, Mike Woods nonetheless made the biggest news of the bunch when he was unveiled as a member of Canada’s Olympic team on June 29 in Aylmer.

It was a day the former record-

setting middle distance runner had been waiting for since age 9.

“I remember watching (Ottawa’s) Glenroy Gilbert and Donovan Bailey just smash it at the ’96 Olympics, and that really stuck in my mind,” Woods pinpoints. “Pretty much since then, I’ve set my goal to be an Olympian. It’s pretty crazy. I’m almost 30 now, and I’ve still managed to keep that dream

alive even though at some points, it seemed like it was completely foolish to have that dream.”

Finishing two spots behind 18-year-old Manotick rider Derek Gee, Woods’ 14th-place time trial res-ult at nationals was “one of my worst days on a bike, to be honest,” he says.

By Victoria Klassen & Dan Plouffe

Road Warriors

Ottawa cyclists survive many bumps in the road, nasty crashes, en route to nationals dominancephoto: steve kingsman

P.81992 was the last time the Canadian men’s volleyball team played in the Olympics. Now they’ll go to Rio.

24-YEAR DROUGHT ENDS

CYCLING continues on p.2

July 2016 Your Not-for-Profit Voice for Local Community Sport SportsOttawa.com

P.6Ottawa’s Keira Christie-Galloway erased Canada’s two fastest women’s hurdlers from the scholastic record books.

KEIRA THE RECORD KILLER

P.3Lions 2014 and 2015 Canadian dec-athlon champion completes final inter-national competition on home track.

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Ottawa Bicycle Club product Ariane Bonhomme (middle) was the women’s U23 road race champion at the June 25-29 nationals in Ottawa/Gatineau.

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But for someone whose athletic career was once in limbo due to a foot that kept on breaking, and who had little bike riding experience just five years ago, that’s quite the pro-gression.

Initially, Woods didn’t think he’d be at nationals period, since it was around the time of the Tour de France, and the Spain-based rider stood a good chance of making his Tour debut with his Cannondale Pro Cycling Team. But then an early-May crash left Woods on the sidelines with a badly broken wrist, and the nationals became a reasonable, less-demanding option.

“There were a lot of things that had to go wrong and a lot of things that had to go right to find myself in this position,” notes the Hillcrest High School grad who enjoyed the luxury of riding straight home after finishing his race. “It’s really great that the Ottawa cycling community put this on, and I really wanted to be a part of it.”

The forced break from racing had a silver lining as it pertains to Rio – Woods has been able to get a solid block of training in, including riding 250 km from Sutton, Que. to Stowe, VT and back on terrain similar to the

Olympic course.“It was basically a mock Rio race,”

explains the climbing specialist. “I had a really good training session. I felt really strong, and I think it bodes well for how I’m going to do in Rio.”

MATTEO DAL-CIN

Give Matteo Dal-Cin the prize for the most dramatic moment of nation-als. The 25-year-old was part of a four-man breakaway in the June 26 men’s road race and had the tiniest of leads with 280 metres left.

Dal-Cin says he saw a small gap and attacked in the last corner of the Tunney’s Pasture course, but his front wheel lost contact with the ground.

“I hit the curb and tumbled over it, somehow avoiding breaking anything other than my helmet which took a huge hit and was in pieces after the crash,” recounts Dal-Cin, who’d been riding high leading up to nationals, having become the first Canadian to ever win the Redlands Bicycle Classic stage race in California.

It took Dal-Cin several minutes to get back up, but the crowd cheered thunderously to salute the local cyclist as he crossed the finish line in 10th place, with raw skin on his shoulder exposed through his torn shirt.

“I’m super grateful to my team for allowing me the opportunity to be in a position to try for the win at nationals when it was in my hometown,” under-lines the Silber Pro Cycling rider. “It was really a special experience and I

hope that next year when the race comes back for its second edition in Ottawa that I can improve on my per-formance from this weekend.”

ALEX CATAFORD

One of Dal-Cin’s Silber teammates is fellow Ottawa native Alex Cataford. The local pair have grown closer being on the same team for the past few years, and lived together last winter in California.

Cataford, along with the rest of the peloton, was pulled from the men’s road race when the breakaway group was seconds away from lapping them, so was right there to witness the disastrous crash.

“Your heart sinks, really,” signals the 22-year-old from Kanata. “Espe-cially in the last corner like that when the race is going to be decided right then. It’s tough to see, but stuff hap-pens and you’ve just got to roll with it and move on to the next one.”

Cataford knows a thing or two about crashing. In 2014, he was hit by a car while training, leaving him with a broken jaw, broken C6 verteb-rae, 10 missing teeth and a severe concussion.

Katherine Maine, an 18-year-old from Ottawa, is living a similar real-ity at present. The Rally Cycling rookie has competed in some of North America’s biggest races this season – including a finish close to the leaders at the Grand Prix Cycliste Gatineau in early June – but missed nationals due to a concussion from a crash during a criterium event in Minnesota.

Cataford, for his part, showed he’s most definitely back in form. In the individual time trial event on June 28 through Gatineau Park, he took the elite men’s silver medal.

“It’s a bit of a surprise to podium, but I’m super happy to put in the best ride I could,” says Cataford, who en-joyed the hometown advantage that came from having travelled the course “countless” times.

“When I started riding as a junior with the Ottawa Bicycle Club, we’d do practices there twice a week,” he adds. “So it’s kind of cool experiencing this in my hometown.”

ROBBI WELDON

Ottawa is the new home for Robbi Weldon. The nation’s capital inherited the three-time Paralympian (including Vancouver and Sochi as a nordic skier) and London 2012 road race cham-pion when she moved from Thunder Bay with her family in January.

Ottawa offered more accessible transit for the athlete with a visual impairment, improved access to training facilities with Cycling Canada in town, and closer proximity to her tandem bike pilot/guide, former na-tional team member Audrey Lemieux of Montreal.

Weldon, who cruised to victory in her class and rode alongside two men’s tandems at nationals, also en-dured a long comeback trail from a crash – the better part of two years after she was struck by a car at a World Cup in 2013.

“It’s really tough when you’re at the top of world and winning gold in London and winning World Cups just weeks before that accident,” reflects the 40-year-old. “And then your world is turned upside down. Your body is in the best shape of its life, and then to not be able to do any physical training

for months – very huge impact on the physiological and mental aspect.”

She’d had a devastating crash, and in her back pocket was the biggest prize available in her sport, but Weldon refused to entertain the idea of calling it a career.

“My kids are a big inspiration, and the people around me, my family,” she explains. “All the support helped me through those tough times.”

ARIANE BONHOMME

Ariane Bonhomme needed to rediscover her drive. The Ottawa Bi-cycle Club athlete from Gatineau had competed in both the track and road cycling World Championships in her final year of junior, but her transition to the senior ranks was rough. She struggled with her health, fitness, per-formance, and, simply loving cycling.

“I put too much pressure on my-self to perform, instead of just trying to have fun and grow in the sport,” reflects the 21-year-old. “But now I ap-proach the race more as, ‘let’s have fun and race my heart out,’ instead of, ‘I need to win, I need to win, I need to win.’”

And sure enough, she won. Bon-homme topped the women’s under-23 class in both the road race and indi-vidual time trial races at nationals. Even better, her Cyclery-Opus team-mates captured the elite women’s titles in both events too.

World Championships medallist Annie Foreman-Mackey rode solo to win the June 25 road race and Olympic medallist Tara Whitten was the fastest in the time trial.

“Having the big win and the U23 win at the same time at home, it’s more than we could ever imagine,” smiles Bonhomme, a four-year mem-ber of the Ottawa-based squad. “It’s the greatest team I’ve been a part of. Everybody is selfless.

“We trust in each other, we have faith in each other, and we know if we work together, we can come home with the win.

“And Annie’s win and my win are the whole team’s win.”

CYCLING: Ottawa Bicycle Club products earn many medals, Ottawa inherits Paralympic champcontinued from Front Cover

photo: dan plouffe

Mike Woods.

photo: steve kingsman


photo: dan plouffe

photo: dan plouffe

On top of Woods’ nomination, a number of other Ottawa athletes have punched their tickets to Rio. Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson will com-pete in swimming, Eugene Wang in table tennis, Melanie McCann in modern pentathlon, Erica Wiebe in wrestling, Cam Smedley and Mike Tayler in canoe slalom, and Cristy Nurse in rowing.

Strong Canadian Olympic team contenders in sports that have not yet named their nominees include Natasha Watcham-Roy (rugby), Gabriela Dabrowski (tennis), Alex Bruce (badminton) and Adam Simac (volleyball), while many Ottawa Lions will shoot for their place on the track-and-field Olympic team at the July 7-10 Canadian Track-and-Field Championships in Edmonton, led by Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games medallists Melissa Bishop, Sultana Frizell and Tim Nedow.

OTTAWA OLYMPIC TEAM UPDATE

Parliament players

photo: daniel prinn

The first-ever T-Ball on the

Hill event was held on June 12 to kick off the

46th National Little League

Week. Ottawa West and

East Nepean combined to enter a team

from the west-ern portion of the city,

while Orleans, Prescott-Rus-sell, Glebe,

South Ottawa and Car-

leton-Russell made up an Ottawa East

squad.

Maddy Schmidt had endured a defeat of the most crushing variety. Moments earlier, she’d lost a two-boat race where the winner would go to the Olympics and 2nd-place would not.

But, choking back tears, the 21-year-old Rideau Canoe Club paddler pledged “I’m still happy.”

“It is hard,” indicated Schmidt, who, with K-2 women’s 500 metres team-mate Michelle Russell, lost the final Ca-nadian team qualifier to Geneviève Orton and Kathleen Fraser by 1.628 seconds. “It’s not really what we expected. We did beat them twice at the first trials. We went into it pretty positive. I was pretty pumped and I felt good.”

It was a fairly convoluted path to get to the showdown – Schmidt and Russell had won the first national team trials event, but Orton and Fraser earned Canada’s Olympic quota position at the continental qualifier, where Russell was ineligible to compete because she’d qualified a quota position for Canada herself the previous year.

But the scenario for the June 24 race at Montreal’s Olympic basin was as crystal clear as it could be – one race, winner take all. Schmidt said she’d never before experienced anything like it.

“There was a lot of the line,” under-lined the Woodroffe High School grad. “I’ve never had to race head-to-head like that before. It’s pretty stressful when you’re not looking at a whole field of boats, all your focus is on just one.”

SILVER LINING FOR 21-YR-OLD

Despite the devastation of the mo-ment, Schmidt showcased the great growth she’s experienced recently by noting that the progress she’d made to get to that point was worth celebrating.

In 2013, Schmidt won a K-1 world junior bronze medal, five Canada Games medals, seven at the Canadian champi-onships and three Pan Am champion-ships gold, but her transition into the senior ranks was anything but smooth.

“I hit rock bottom,” she recalled. “I was depressed. I had mono. I hardly competed at all. I lost a lot of weight. I was pretty miserable that winter.”

After moving from Ottawa to Halifax to join the senior women’s national team at their home training base, Schmidt began to turn it around thanks to a pos-itive mindset, a training group with many fast athletes, and hard work.

“It’s really nice to see that fast pro-gression and all of a sudden, I’m here competing for a spot at the Olympics,” highlighted the Dalhousie University stu-dent. “So I have to be happy.”

This season was a big step up from 2015 when Schmidt failed to even make the top-16 in her individual event at na-tional team trials. At age 21, the future

remains bright for an athlete who still has the under-23 worlds this summer, and came within a few strokes from making it to the biggest stage of all.

“I’m someone who enjoys the pro-cess a lot more than the race execu-tion. I like developing as a person and as an athlete,” added Schmidt, who began her kayak journey at the Ottawa River Canoe Club. “Even when we were at World Cups competing, the whole time I’m thinking about what I’m going to do this winter to get better for next year. I’m just happy that now I can start focus-ing on developing and becoming a better athlete, not just competing.”

TAYLER, SMEDLEY TO HIT RIO

Largely on the strength of vic-

tories in all four runs at the national team trials, London 2012 Olympian Mike Tayler, 24, won the points race to earn Canada’s lone Olympic berth in the men’s K-1 whitewater event, while Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games silver medallist Cam Smedley officially punched his ticket to Rio in the men’s C-1 slalom.

“It is an incredibly tough battle every four years for just the one spot at the Games,” Tayler, who finished 20th at the London 2012 Olympics, said in a Canoe-Kayak Canada press release. “I want to say thank you to all of my teammates and especially Ben Hayward and John Hastings for constantly pushing the bar higher for Canadian slalom.”

3ELITERideau paddler ‘still happy’ despite narrow Olympic miss

By Dan Plouffe

Maddy Schmidt of the Rideau Canoe Club (second from left) finished 1.628 seconds behind the winners in a showdown for a K-2 500 m Olympic berth. photo: dan plouffe

Ottawa will welcome around 1,200-1,500 competitors across all events taking place during the July 23-24 Canadian Triathlon Championships at Dow’s Lake.

A local organizing commit-tee of 20+ will add about 350-400 volunteers to help put on the show.

“Ottawa has a huge and very vibrant triathlon community,” underlines Greg Kealey, the head coach of the Bytown Storm Triathlon Club and head of the organizing committee.

With competitions taking place throughout both days, triathletes of varying age and

levels will compete in eight dif-ferent races.

The signature event will be the CAMTRI (Canadian-Amer-ican-Mexican Triathlon Associ-ation) race, featuring an inter-national field alongside some top Canadians (though likely not those nominated to Canada’s 2016 Olympic team since they’ll be acclimatizing in ad-vance of August’s races in Rio).

“It’s the first CAMTRI in Ottawa’s history for the sport of triathlon,” notes Kealey, whose club will send all of its athletes to the start line in vari-ous events – around 60 in total between ages 8-20, including U23 nationals category com-petitor Samantha Klus, a past national junior championships silver medallist.

Site of the Ontario Champi-onships in recent years, Kealey hopes the Ottawa Triathlon will continue to rise in stature and welcome even larger champi-onships in the future. With a spectacular course that runs along the Rideau Canal and through some of Ottawa’s most established neighbourhoods, “I think we have one of the nicest venues in the country, if not one of the nicest in North Amer-ica to hold an event like this,” Kealey indicates.

After Patrick Arbour crossed the 1,500 metres fin-ish line at the June 17-18 Pa-namerican Combined Events Cup, he lay exhausted on the ground alongside his fellow competitors.

A crowd of Arbour’s friends, family and coaches surrounded him, cheering and offering congratulations, help-ing him to his feet.

It was the first, and last, time in the Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club athlete’s eight-year decathlon career that he broke the 5-minute barrier in the gruelling final stage of the 2-day, 10-event competition.

Then on his home track at Terry Fox Athletic Facility, the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games participant officially called it a career.

“I came in knowing that it was potentially going to be my last competition,” Arbour indic-ates. “I struggled with a few events on day one, but I tried to keep the perspective that, ‘this could be your last chance competing on the track, and your home track, ever.’ So I

just kept rallying back and try-ing to make the most of my events and enjoy the experi-ence.”

Arbour’s total of 7,386 points was short of his person-al-best mark of 7,593 (set in 2013) and the Olympic qualify-ing standard of 8,100, though the 28-year-old did land on the national podium for the fifth time at the competition that also served as the Canadian Combined Events Champion-ships with his silver medal per-formance.

“Overall, it was not the score I was looking for, but as an overall experience, I’m happy with how it went,” says the 2014 and 2015 Canadian

champion. “I came out with four personal bests, and a na-tional medal again.”

Canada’s Rostam Turner won the 1,500 m race, over-taking leading U.S. competitor Trent Baltzell in the last few strides before the finish. The 21-year-old claimed the Cana-dian crown and finished as run-ner-up with the international field included.

USA’s Scott Filip won the Panamerican men’s decath-lon, while USA’s Quintunya Chapman topped the women’s heptathlon standings, with Ca-nadian Jessica Zelinka in 3rd.

Arbour ranked 4th against the international field. The sup-port behind the hometown boy

was evident from the crowd’s cheers any time his name was announced, and at no time more than after the 1,500 finish.

A ‘AAA’ minor hockey player as a teenager, Arbour found success in track-and-field’s throwing disciplines and later parlayed his all-around athleticism into the decath-lon at the insistance of Lions coach James Holder – this despite Arbour first telling him “I will never do decathlon.”

Arbour is now a coach himself with Ashbury College and is interested in working with young Lions athletes in the future as well. He says the time was right to finish up his high-performance career.

“Just ready to take the next step in my life,” signals the Sacred Heart Catholic High School and University of Ottawa grad. “It’s been eight years of training, two full Olympic cycles. I knew I had to end track at some point, and I figured what better place than Olympic trials on your home soil where you did your first-ever decathlon. So it’s kind of poetic that way.”

By Victoria Klassen

file photo

Sam Klus.

Triathlon nationals come to town Lions’ Toronto 2015 rep completes decathlon career on home trackBy Victoria Klassen

photo: victoria klassen

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After a one-year hiatus, FC Capital United Soc-cer Club’s popular Mini World Cup tournament made a comeback with 29 teams and its first-ever girls’ division on a hot and sunny June 18-19 week-end at Leitrim Park.

“This is our first year with the girls and we are quite excited about it,” underlines lead organ-izer and Cap U club president Kumar Saha. “We brought in teams as far away as Guelph for the U13 girls. For our U10 girls, it’s the first time and we had five teams in that division as well.”

The Mini World Cup has run for 15 years, though a change from usual dates and subsequent low registration forced the cancellation of the 2015 edition. Saha says the club would like to see the tournament grow to 40 teams in 2017.

This year’s event mimicked the Euro 2016 for the under-13 boys’ teams and the U17 Women’s World Cup for the U13 girls’ teams, with each wearing the colours of one of those tournament’s participating nations instead of their regular club jerseys. Cap U’s entries played as those compet-itions’ host countries – France for the boys and Jordan for the girls – while the visiting clubs were randomly assigned participating countries.

Competing as Team France had an extra spe-cial meaning for the Cap U boys since they’d trav-

elled to the renowned under-13 Mondial Pupilles de Plomelin international tournament in May.

“In France, the boys learned the intensity level and the quickness they have to play with,” high-lights team coach Mark Sweazey, who’s pleased to see the team’s progress. “It’s amazing seeing the boys play, and that their game is coming up. We can actually start competing.”

The Guelph Royals, dressed as USA, came away victorious in the U13 girls’ division, with Russell (Cameroon) 2nd, and West Ottawa taking bronze. Defending Euro champs Spain, played by Ottawa City, topped the U13 boys’ tournament, with Czech Republic (Ottawa South United) in 2nd, and Ireland (Ottawa Futsal Club) in 3rd.

France jerseys special to Mini World Cup hosts– COMMUNITY CLUBS –

By Victoria Klassen

photo: victoria klassen

Atletico Madrid FCSummer Camp & Player ID Event

OSU Force Academy in partnership with Complete Sports Solutions and Atletico Madrid FC join forces to host an Elite Summer Camp & Player ID Event.

Camp will be overseen by Atletico Madrid FC Academy coaches which will deliver the same player development curriculum that has produced professional players such as, Fernando Torres, Sergio Aguero, David Villa and David De Gea to name a few.

At the Summer Camp the coaches will identify players as part of the Player ID to invite to Spain for a week training tour at the Atletico Madrid FC Academy over the 2015 March Break.

Age GroupU8-U14 Boys & Girls(Players born 2008-2002)

DatesWeek 1 | July 4-8

Week 2 | July 11-15 (9am-4pm)(9am-4pm)

LocationMalvern Park - Barrhaven

Cost Per Week$375 per player

In Partnershipwith:for more information or to register visit

www.forceacademy.ca











www.forceacademy.ca











www.forceacademy.ca

OSU Force Academy in partnership with Atlético Madrid FC join forces to host an Elite Summer Camp & Player ID Event.

Camp will be overseen by Atlético Madrid FC Academy coaches who will deliver the same player development curriculum that has pro-duced pro players such as Fernando Torres, Sergio Aguero, David Villa and David De Gea.

At the Summer Camp, the coaches will identify players as part of the Player ID to invite to Spain for a week training tour at the Atlético Madrid FC Academy over the 2017 March Break.

Whether it’s on the field in Florida or the floor for the Griffins, Gloucester’s Cam Badour’s life is all about lacrosse, all year long.

To follow his outdoor pur-suits, the 17-year-old will spend one more year at IMG Academy in the sunshine state before joining the Duke University Blue Devils men’s field lacrosse team, and, indoors, he’s currently joined the Griffins box lacrosse team just in time for the Ontario Jr. ‘B’ Lacrosse League playoffs.

Badour is thoroughly en-joying his summertime home-coming after his first year in Florida, dressing for the Griffins alongside many teammates he’s played with since age 10.

“Everybody is really close,” notes the 6’ 4”, 200-lb. player.

“We’re always hanging out to-gether before and after the games. It’s a great team envir-onment.”

Badour missed all but four regular season games while still down south for school, but is eager to help the 9-11 team push for a playoff run. The 6th-

seeded Griffins split the first two games of their best-of-5 first-round series against #3 Oakville, with the deciding contests set for July 1-3 on the road.

The former St. Mark Catholic High School student chose to at-tend the IMG prep school in or-der to get ready to play at top-10 nationally-ranked Duke.

“Basically it’s just school and sport all day long,” Badour sig-nals. “It’s fantastic.”

The Ottawa Capitals field lacrosse product says he can’t pick whether he loves box or field lacrosse more, with each offer-ing its own unique traits.

“Field lacrosse is more of a slowed down strategic game, where box is more like just go at it — it’s very intense,” notes Badour. “Lacrosse was a route to navigate me into college, to get a paid-for tuition so I could get into a high-level university and get a better education.”

While lacrosse has become serious business for Badour and takes up much of his life, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“When you’re playing lacrosse, you forget everything else that’s going on in the world. You just focus on the game,” he indicates. “It’s a very creative game, I find, compared to a lot of other sports. There’s so many different things you can do. That’s what I love about lacrosse.”

Duke-bound Gloucester player lives all-lacrosse lifeBy Victoria Klassen

photo provided

Cam Badour.

First Fury FC foray

Team Canada captain Julian de Guzman subs off for Ottawa native Dario Conte in the final minutes of Ottawa Fury FC’s 1-1 tie with Rayo OKC on June 11 at TD Place. In making his North American Soccer League debut, the 18-year-old became the first Fury FC academy player to see game action with the big squad this season.


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Rebelles Wrap

Benjamin Kendrick visera en-core le sommet du podium lors des Championnats juniors panaméri-cains de judo qui se tiendra du 1 au 4 juillet en Argentine, mais cette fois-ci, il jouira d’un luxe qui est devenu rare récemment – l’utilisa-tion de ses deux pieds.

En préparation aux Champion-nats canadiens élites en janvier, l’élève qui vient de compléter sa 10e année s’était blessé au pied, mais ça ne l’avait pas empêché de com-pétitionner.

« Quand je faisais mes tech-niques, ça faisait mal; je pouvais le sentir », raconte Kendrick, qui a néanmoins remporté tous ses matchs pour trôner au sommet de sa division des chez les moins de 18 ans.

« J’étais juste content que ce tournoi soit terminé, » a-t-il laissé en-tendre. « Ce n’était pas ma meilleure journée ou ma meilleure perform-ance à cause de ma blessure, mais j’étais très content du résultat ».

Environ un mois plus tard quand il est finalement allé faire des ray-ons-X, il a découvert que son pied était cassé depuis tout ce temps.

« L’esprit dépasse la matière, comme on dit, » a précisé, tout sourire, l’athlète de judo de l’année aux Prix sportifs d’Ottawa 2015. « Je me suis débrouillé ».

Le pied dans un plâtre, Kendrick a manqué les Championnats ca-nadiens ouverts ce printemps, mais s’est quand même mérité une place sur l’équipe panaméricaine grâce à ses exploits passés, incluant ses cinq titres nationaux.

En représentant le Canada in-ternationalement en judo, l’athlète de 16 ans suivra les traces de ses parents – son père James Kendrick a gagné un championnat canadien sénior à deux reprises alors que sa mère Nathalie Gosselin, a participé aux Jeux Olympiques en 1996.

« C’est vraiment, vraiment inspir-ant, » signale Kendrick, lui qui s’en-traine avec les meilleurs du pays (parmi tous les âges) au Centre de judo national à Montréal.

Le jeudi, il part pour Montréal et complète habituellement six pratiques d’une heure et demie chacune dans les prochains trois jours. Il ne revient que le samedi.

« Je m’entraine fort, » indique le résident de Gloucester. « J’aime le sentiment quand tu te bats et que tu es fatigué, mais tu deviens meil-leur physiquement et mentalement. J’adore sentir que j’ai accompli quelque chose ».

Le membre du programme sports-études à Louis-Riel aime la flexibilité offerte à l’école spé-cialisée afin qu’il puisse exceller comme athlète et comme étudiant.

« Le programme est très, très bon, » souligne Kendrick, lui qui s’est in-scrit à Louis-Riel en 7e année. « J’ai déjà plusieurs bons souvenirs. Il n’y a aucun autre endroit où j’aimerais me retrouver ».

Louis-Riel high school stu-dent Benjamin Kendrick is ready to shoot for the top of the podium once again when he takes to the floor for the July 1-4 Pan American Junior Judo Championships in Argentina,

but this time he’ll enjoy a luxury that’s been missing of late – the use of both his feet.

Prior to January’s Canadian Elite Invitational Na-tional Championships, Kendrick had hurt his foot, but he felt at the time it wasn’t anything that would keep him from competing.

“When I was doing my techniques, it hurt. I could feel it,” recalls Kendrick, who nonetheless went on to win all his matches en route to his under-18 division’s title. “I was just happy that tournament was over. It wasn’t my best day or my best performance because of my injury, but I was still very happy with the result.”

Around a month later when finally went for X-rays, the 2015 Ottawa Sports Awards’ top judo athlete found out he’d had a broken foot all along.

“‘Mind over matter,’ like they say,” Kendrick smiles. “I made it through.”

In an air cast for an extended period, the 16-year-old was forced to miss this spring’s open national champi-onships, but earned a spot on the Canadian Jr. Pan Am

team nonetheless on the strength of his past domin-ance, which includes five national titles and counting.

In representing Canada in international judo, Kendrick is following in his parents’ footsteps – his father James Kendrick was a two-time senior national champion, and his mother Nathalie Gosselin was a 1996 Olympian.

“It’s really, really inspiring,” signals Kendrick, who’s trained alongside the country’s top judokas (of all ages) at the national team’s home base in Montreal for the past year-and-a-half.

On Thursdays, Kendrick leaves for Montreal and usually catches six practices of about an 1.5 hours in length each by the end of Saturday.

“I train hard there,” notes the Gloucester resident. “But I love the feeling when you’re fighting, and you’re exhausted, but you’re getting stronger physically and mentally. I love feeling like I’ve accomplished some-thing.”

The Louis-Riel sports-études athlete enjoys the flex-ibility the specialized program provides in order for him to excel both as an athlete and as a student, plus the individualized physical training.

“The program is very, very good,” highlights Kendrick, who enrolled at Louis-Riel in Grade 7 and recently completed Grade 10. “I have so many great memories already. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Rockin’ Rebelle Profile: Broken foot can’t stop judoka Kendrick

Profil Rebelle: Un pied cassé n’arrête pas le judoka Kendrick

www.louis-riel.cepeo.on.ca/sports-etudes

Benjamin Kendrick a reçu le honneur de l’athlète de judo de l’année aux Prix sportifs d’Ottawa 2015, présenté par le Maire d’Ottawa, Jim Watson.

For Adeline Wang, it was a fantastic finish, and for Kate-leen Jia, it was a beyond belief bounce back, as a pair of local rhythmic gymnasts pounced on the podium at the peak provin-cial level.

Bolstered by her 1st-place hoop routine, Jia took home the all-around silver medal in the Level 6B category at the June 10-12 Ontario Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships in Etobicoke. Four years ago, she wouldn’t have even been able to step up on the podium.

In 2012, the Ottawa Rhythmic Gymnastics Club ath-lete underwent surgery to stop the progression of scoliosis, a curvature of the spine she was born with.

“I had one metal bar and two screws attached onto the curve so that it couldn’t curve anymore, but as a result I lost all of the flexibility that I had in that area,” recounts Jia, who was in a body cast for four months and away from gym-

nastics for six. “But I was eager to return to training, and have been improving ever since.”

After placing 3rd for ball and 4th for clubs, Jia solidified the first provincial all-around medal of her career with a “near-perfect” hoop perform-ance.

“My last routine, I really gave it my all,” notes Jia, who would like to try to move up to the national stream next year, and begin coaching. “When I saw my choice score, I was shocked, relieved and proud.”

From body cast to top of rhythmic class– COMMUNITY CLUBS –

By Mat LaBranche

file photo

The Kanata Rhythmic Gymnastics Club’s Adeline Wang of the was one of eight local athletes to find the all-around podium at the provincials.

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RHYTHMIC cont’s p.6

6 EDITORIAL, HIGH SCHOOLS & ELITE

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Team of the Month: Cairine Wilson Wildcats Senior Girls’ Soccer TeamAbout: The Cairine Wilson Wildcats captured just the second team sport silver medal in their school’s 41-year history with their run at the June 2-4 OFSAA ‘AA’ girls’ soccer championships in North Bay. The Wildcats went 3-1 in pool play at the event, then prevailed in the quarter-fi-nal round 3-2 over Guelph’s Bishop Macdonell (the 2014 champions and 2015 silver medallists), followed by a 2-0 victory over Windsor’s F.J. Brennan to reach the final, where they fell 1-0 to St. Thomas’ Parkside. Defending-champion Louis-Riel went undefeated at the same event, but three ties with just a win kept them out of the playoff round by a point.

About: On June 25 in Montreal, Ottawa soccer players Marcus Allen and Claire Rea helped Team Ontario to a 2-1 victory over Quebec in the Danone Nations Cup national final to determine which side would represent Canada at October’s international final in Paris. The World Cup-style Nations Cup is the world’s largest soccer tournament for players aged 10-12. Starting with a tryout event in Ott-awa, the local pair earned two of just 11 available spots on Team Ontario.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 Stars of the Month will receive free one-week Family Passes to the Y.

YMCA-YWCA OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION

STARS OF THE MONTH

Athletes of the Month:

Lasagna is the fuel that fires the Ottawa athlete most determ-ined to be “the fastest kid on hurdles in Canada.”

In the space of three weeks, Keira Christie-Galloway erased the names of Canada’s two greatest female sprint hurdlers of all-time from the record books.

First, the Grade 11 St. Mat-thew Catholic High School student shaved .08 seconds off world champion Perdita Felicien’s OF-SAA senior girls’ record with a 13.33-second clocking on June 3 in Windsor, and then broke Olympic bronze medallist Priscilla Lopes-Schliep’s under-19 club provincials mark with a 13.64 on June 25 at the Athletics Ontario Junior Championships in Toronto.

Christie-Galloway believes it is her passion for the sport combined with a background in gymnastics and, perhaps, a de-pendency on Italian pasta that has made all this possible.

“I eat Gabriel’s lasagna before my Ottawa competitions,” laughs Christie-Galloway, who was only introduced to hurdles through the Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club three short years ago.

After falling out of love with gymnastics, and definitely out-growing the sport, the 5’6” ath-lete was ready for change when

she joined the Lions.“I thought I was a sprinter, but

then we had a hurdle practice,” Christie-Galloway recounts.

Quick to notice Christie-Gallo-way’s immediate affinity for pro-pelling herself over a series of 30- or 33-inch barriers (depending on the age category entered), and 100 metres of track, the Lions’ coaches recommended more summer training and entry into the high school track season.

“I didn’t even know what that was,” she recalls.

Yet, Christie-Galloway went on to the finals at OFSAA that very first season, falling in the final seconds of the competition.

Her Grade 10 season had a much different conclusion, with a new junior girls’ record time of 11:24.

This year, she set new records

in every high school race she entered, beating the best times any senior girls from Ontario ever ran in Grade 12 or 13, and also adding an OFSAA long jump silver medal for good measure.

Christie-Galloway is now well accustomed to a regiment of training five times a week, us-ing tempo runs, speed work on hurdles, weights and stretching.

And of course, the pre-com-petition lasagna tradition that does nothing to weigh her down on the track.

“I have been working hard,” notes Christie-Galloway, who will compete in the July 19-24 IAAF World Junior Championships even though she is still eligible to compete in the youth age group. “Hurdles is what I love to do. I don’t even feel the hurdles – I am just running.”

RUGBY & SOCCER MEDALS

Local teams scored a pair of OFSAA rugby medals – the St. Peter Knights girls won ‘AAA’ bronze in town May 30-June 1, while the Ashbury Colts boys also took bronze at the June 2-4 ‘A/AA’ event in Cobourg – while the Cairine Wilson Wildcats won sil-ver at the June 2-4 OFSAA ‘AA’ girls’ soccer championships in North Bay.See local OFSAA track medal-lists list at SportsOttawa.com.

St. Matthew hurdler beats Felicien & Lopes-Schliep recordsBy Anne Duggan Keira

Christie- Galloway.

photo: dan plouffe

Marcus Allen Claire Rea&Sport: Soccer

Club: Ottawa South United SC

Sport: Soccer

Club: Ottawa City SC

Wang also saved her best for last with a strong rope routine that vaul-ted her into the Level 6A all-around bronze medal position. It hadn’t star-ted as well when her hoop got caught on her foot and flew out of bounds.

“I was under a lot of stress throughout the competition due to the first routine I performed, but I re-covered well,” underlines the Kanata Rhythmic Gymnastics Club athlete. “It didn’t let my previous mistakes dis-tract me from doing my best.”

Though she’ll continue to parti-cipate in group rhythmic gymnastics and – like Jia – begin coaching, the provincials marked the final individual event of Wang’s career.

“I’m very pleased with my results and it was a great way to finish off my last competition,” indicates the Bell High School student who just finished Grade 10. “It was a huge personal achievement, and I was also happy to share my accomplishment with my parents in the audience and my won-derful coach, Dasa Lelli.”

Two local athletes were crowned provincial champions in their cat-egories – Kanata’s Serena Nie (Level 2A) and Ottawa’s Jessie Yang (L4A) – while four others also hit the all-around podium: Ottawa’s Selena Pang (silver, L3C), Melanie Li (bronze, L5C) and Nadezhda Gromikova (bronze, L2A), and Kanata’s Britney Han (sil-ver, L5A).

RHYTHMIC cont’d from p.5

Local goalball veteran fired up for return to Paralympics

Heading into the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Ottawa’s Amy Burk has a chip on her shoulder.

First, there’s the stinging memory of the London 2012 Paralympics when she and her Canadian women’s goalball teammates suffered a heartbreaking overtime loss to keep them out of the medal round.

“I still relive it to this day,” Burk highlights. “Per-sonally, I still kind of feel responsible because of a mistake I made in the game where we suffered the loss, and I still hold a grudge against Finland.

“I can’t wait to get to Rio because I don’t ever want to feel that way again. I made it my goal after London to do everything I possibly can to help the team reach the podium because I don’t want them to feel how I felt after losing that quarterfinal game.”

Then, three years later, the 26-year-old was dealt another devastating blow. It came in the form of a classification review, where a lengthy appeal process prevented her from competing in the Toronto 2015 Parapan Am Games.

Burk had been ruled ineligible to play because her visual impairment wasn’t deemed to meet Paralympic standards (though all goalball athletes wind up having no vision since they wear blinders).

“My appeal didn’t get done in time, so I wasn’t able to play,” recounts Burk, whose teammates, in-cluding fellow Ottawa resident Whitney Bogart, went on to win a bronze medal. “It was hard, because how often do you get to compete at home? And to pre-pare for something like that just to have it all taken away from you the day you enter the village...”

Amy Burk.

GOALBALL continues on p.8

By Mat LaBranche

7

A little healthy compet-ition can go a long way in the sports world, as Juliette Chapman and Avery Rosales demonstrated at the May 31-June 4 Canadian Gymnastics Championships in Edmonton.

The longtime working mates went toe-to-toe with the country’s best Novice high-performance gymnasts – and one another.

“It’s definitely a healthy re-

lationship,” underlines Chap-man. “It can be competitive, but it’s healthy.”

The 13-year-olds have progressed side-by-side throughout their careers, of-ten leapfrogging one another in results.

“It’s great to have someone to work with and practice with, to see each other’s routines and see what worked for both of us,” highlights Rosales, who easily met her goals of a top-15 fin-

ish at the event.Rosales was 8th all-

around and had a 2nd-place performance on floor, while Chapman finished 4th all-around, 2nd on beam, and was the national champ on floor – the club’s first-ever Canadian crown in a high-per-formance category.

“It was a big accomplish-ment,” smiles Chapman, who won her club’s first women’s Ontario title since 2013 earlier this season. “I think it

was scored higher because I added more to my routine during my practices after provincials.”

Finishing near the very top represented a major step up for both athletes from the competition where they quali-fied for nationals.

Rosales and Chapman had to put together impress-ive second-day performances at Elite Canada just to make the cut, with Rosales pla-cing 15th and Chapman just sneaking in at 24th.

“We have worked really hard to improve our men-tal training and perform under a variety of stressful situations,” notes Tumblers women’s head coach Alina Florea. “This season’s res-ults are a confirmation that our hard work and profes-sional approach to training is

paying off.”

MORE MEN’S MEDALS

Fellow Tumbler Justin Perry also landed on the po-dium at the Canadian Cham-pionships, earning bronze medals for both floor and vault in the men’s National Open category.

Sam Zakutney, a Fran-co-Cité high school senior, fin-ished amongst the top men in the Senior high-perform-ance class. The Ottawa Gym-nastics Centre athlete was 7th all-around, and placed 2nd on parallel bars and 3rd on high bar in event finals.

Spring Action’s Hugo Lalumière was also a double-medallist at nationals, taking home bronze medals in both the trampoline and double mini trampoline Level 5 Novice age 17+ events.

Tumblers gymnast racks up another club first at national champs– COMMUNITY CLUBS –

By Alex Quevillon

Juliette Chapman won Tumblers Gym-nastics Centre’s first-ever Canadian title in a high-performance category.

LOCAL SYNCHRO ATHLETES DOMINATE ESPOIR NATIONALSThanks to a dominant showing at the May 31-June 5 Canadian Espoir Synchronized Swimming Championships in Winnipeg, Nepean Synchro product Olivia Jensen-Large and Gloucester Syn-chro’s Jade Warren were selected to Canada’s 2016 age 13-15 national team that will compete in the Sept. 1-4 UANA Pan American Championships in Puerto Rico. Out of a field of 232 com-petitors, Warren topped the figures competition, and also added a 3rd-place finish in the solo event. Now based in Toronto, Jensen-Large won the duet competition alongside regional training centre Ontario partner Maura McLean. Gloucester’s Meaghan Lapierre was also a champion

at the event, winning both the age 11-12 figures and solo events.

Local ultimate players Danielle Fortin, Kaylee Sparks and Kathryn Pohran helped Canada to a women’s bronze medal win at the June 18-25 world championships in London, UK, while Andy Ouchterlony, Derek Alexander, Greg Ellis and Karl Loiseau placed 4th with the Canadian open team. Canada also took silver in the men’s and women’s masters events, and bronze in the mixed competition.

LOCAL ULTIMATE PLAYERS COLLECT WORLDS MEDALS

Ottawa native Julianne Zussman, a Rugby World Cup silver medallist in 2014, will be back in Ca-nadian colours for July’s Women’s Rugby Super Series event in Salt Lake City, while Natasha Smith of the Barrhaven Scottish will play for the Maple Leafs side in a two-match series vs USA in Utah.

RUGBY VET RETURNS TO NATIONAL TEAM

VOLLEYBALL PLAYER DEBUTS WITH CANADIAN SR. WOMEN

WRESTLER WIEBE VICTORIOUS IN OLYMPIC TUNE-UP

OTTAWA SPORTSPAGE SNAPSHOTS

Ottawa native Shainah Joseph made her debut for the Canadian senior women’s national volleyball team during FIVB Grand Prix June 3-5 in Poland and June 10-12 in Czech Repub-lic. Canada lost all six of its matches, though Joseph scored a team-high 20 points in their final contest, a five-setter against Bulgaria. Maverick Volleyball Club players Kevin Lebreux and Alexandre Nsakanda have been selected for Canada’s youth men’s national team that will compete in the July 19-24 USA High Performance Championships in Florida.

The Dome @ Louis-Riel hosted a unique 5 vs. 5 Embassy Tournament for players age 8-11 on June 4, featuring diplomatic representatives from France, Canada, Romania/Republic of Moldova, Croatia, Canadian Global Affairs, Algeria and Latin America, along with a pair of entries from the Montreal’s Paris-Saint-Germain academy program. Croa-tia won the inaugural edition of the event. See SportsOttawa.com for more details.

LOCAL PSG ACADEMY WELCOMES EMBASSY TOURNEY

Fresh off a successful fundraising event back home in Ottawa, Rio 2016 Olympian-to-be Erica Wiebe added another title to her collection with a victory in the women’s 75 kg division at the June 24 Canada Cup wrestling tourna-ment in Guelph. Fellow Ottawa native Adam Takahashi MacFadyen was the

runner-up in the men’s 61 kg competition.

OTTAWA CREW UNBEATEN AT U17 BASKETBALL WORLDSOttawa’s Noah Kirkwood and the Canadian under-17 men’s basketball team are off to the quarter-final round at the June 23-July 3 FIBA U-17 World Championships in Spain. Canada edged Australia 81-78 in its opener before blasting Finland 92-68, China 105-54 and Dominican Republic 79-52 (in the round of 16) to set up a final-8 showdown with Turkey. Kirkwood has averaged 13.4 minutes of floor time per game and has scored 10 points. Team coaches include Ottawa’s Dave DeAveiro and James Derouin.

BASEBALL PLAYER LEADS CANADIAN WOMEN TO WINOttawa’s Tess Forman helped Canada to victory at the inaugural Under-20 Women’s Baseball International Cup in Dominican Republic. Canada beat Cuba, Mexico and Dominican Republic en route to the title on June 5.

Sport: Soccer

Club: Ottawa City SC

file photo

They developed together since the start of their competitive careers as youngsters, made local soccer history together as teenagers, and are now emerging professional players as adults – one by the Canal, and the other by the Channel.

On Sunday, June 19, Ottawa South United Soccer Club alumni Kris Twardek and Dario

Conte were back side-by-side again, inspiring the next generation of ath-letes at their old club for the OSU Alumni Players in the Pros: the difficult pathway to success event at the Nepean Sportsplex.

Twardek and Conte rose through the ranks at OSU alongside many talen-ted 1997-born boys, who entered the record books when they won Ottawa’s first-ever Ontario Youth Soccer League title in 2013, at the U16 level.

Conte recently made his debut with Ottawa Fury FC’s North American Soccer League team, while Twardek plays for Millwall FC in the English League One.

OSU CONTACTS PLACE PLAYERS ON PRO PATHBefore that, OSU had connected each of them with opportunities to play

with pro clubs’ academies – Conte in Vancouver and Twardek in Everton (the English Premier League club where OSU Technical Director Paul Harris served as an academy coach prior to joining OSU).

“That was the best experience for me,” Twardek told the crowd of over 60, which included many aspiring players and their families on Father’s Day evening. “It gave me that extra drive. I was in the environment. I saw what it was like. I saw people training every day, saw the standard and the facilities.

“Saw the players and the whole culture around soccer, and that just pushed it over the edge for me — and I said that’s what I want to do.”

Though they’ve managed to make it to the pros, neither player was part of provincial team programs when they were younger. That’s a sign, Twardek noted, that OSU can home brew talent for the next level.

Trust, self-belief and work ethic are key traits that were essential to over-come challenges along the way, such as injuries, or not being selected for a team or opportunity, added the 19-year-old midfielder.

“The first thing when I wake up that I think about is, ‘What am I going to do today so that I get where I want to be?’” explained Twardek, who moved to London at age 16 to join Millwall’s academy and also played for Czech Republic’s youth national team. “I have that mentality now, and I’ve had that mentality since I was about 13.”

Conte, meanwhile, talked about how he used to practice with his soccer ball in the kitchen at home during the winter. These two players reminisced about showing up to practice early and getting together with their friends on their free time to sharpen their soccer skills.

The discussion was moderated by OSU Club Head Coach Paul Harris, and current OSU players in the audience had the opportunity to ask questions. OSU goalkeeper coach Mike Toshack, who’s worked with many of the top Major League Soccer keepers, was also part of the panel, and saw several essential components to making it to the top in both Twardek and Conte.

“That desire, that drive, that competitiveness – which they have on their own — that’s what you really, really need,” Toshack noted. “The traits that they have give them a chance to be pros. They’re young pros right now, breaking in, but it gives them a chance.”

OSU alumni navigate difficult path to prosOSU Force Academy Zone

North American Soccer League and English Division One pros, and past OSU teammates, Dario Conte (left) and Kris Twardek.

www.osu.ca

8

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SESSION2016

It was a moment 24 years in the mak-ing. The last time the Canadian men’s vol-leyball team had qualified for the Olympics was 1992, but on June 5, after nervously watching from their hotel in Tokyo as Po-land pulled out a 27-25 final set win over Australia, the drought was finally over – the result of that match sending Canada back to the biggest stage in sport.

“The guys all ran out in the hallway, and there’s a video floating around on Facebook of us going crazy in the hallway and there’s beer flying everywhere,” recounts Team Canada player Adam Simac of Ottawa. “It was a moment of organic joy. There was nothing fabricated about it, it was just the guys being so happy that we did it.”

The second-most senior player on the team that competed at the last-chance qualifier May 27-June 5, 32-year-old Simac has been a central figure in Canada’s rise into the world’s top-10 rankings. The vet-eran middle fully appreciates how difficult

it is to earn one of just 12 Olympic entries.“It still hasn’t really sunk in, to be hon-

est. I thoroughly enjoyed that celebration, but now we’ve got to see which 12 guys are going to go to Rio,” underlines Simac, who is part of “an absolute dogfight” for a

roster spot at his middle position. “There’s definitely no resting on my laurels right now. The mission now is to be a part of that 12.”

Team Canada was not at its best form at the Tokyo tournament, going the full five sets in four of their seven matches, but managed to grind out the needed victories to grab the fourth and final spot available to the eight participants, thanks to their 4-3 record in the round robin event.

Simac says their intensive pre-tourna-ment work with a sports psychologist was invaluable to pushing through.

“I think that helped us get over that hump,” underlines the Sir Wilfrid Laurier Secondary School grad. “There are so many factors sort of working against you, impeding you from having your best per-formance. He made us realize, ‘It’s alright. Everybody else is kind of in the same situ-ation as you are.’ Whatever you’ve got on the given day, you work with that.”

The qualifier didn’t offer the ideal per-formance scenario for Simac, who was coming off December shoulder surgery and played just five sets at the event, though he’s been a regular in subsequent World League matches.

“We have such a good support staff,” highlights Simac, noting he is especially in-debted to the team’s athletic therapist for getting his shoulder to be “a non-issue” and his knees back in shape too. “He basically put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

Simac says it’s “awesome” to see how far the national team has come since he joined in 2008, underlining the exceptional impact made by the coaches at the full-time training centre in Gatineau. He notes that during the unbridled celebration, he was still reflecting on the long path to get there.

“It was a very proud moment,” Simac underlines.

– ELITE –Simac, Canada at last reach Olympic volleyball

photo: fivb

By Dan Plouffe Adam Simac.

Burk finally won her appeal in February, en-abling her to return to the sport that has taken her to many points on the globe since she first took up in Charlottetown at age 13.

In May, Canada atten-ded a pair of international tournaments in Europe, competing alongside nine of the 10 opponents they’ll see in Rio. At an event in Sweden, the Canadians went 2-1 in pool play but missed out on the top-

flight playoffs due to goal differential. They followed that up with a 4th-place finish in Poland.

“It was great to play against teams like Rus-sia, Turkey and China, because we have some players who don’t have as much experience at the international level. It gave them a taste of what we’re going to see in Rio in September,” signals Burk, poised to appear at her third Paralympics, this time targeting a semi-final berth. “I definitely think we have medal potential.”

4 LOCALS MAKE PARALYMPICS, MORE TO COME

Ottawa is poised to have a massive crew for the Rio Paralympics, with close to 20 local athletes carrying serious shots at making the Canadian team.

A handful have already been selected: Priscilla Gagné and Tony Walby in judo, 2012 gold medallist Robbi Weldon in cycling, and 2012 silver medallist Patrice Dagenais in wheel-chair rugby.

GOALBALL from p.6

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