One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

Ok, so that's a little dark, but I couldn't resist. Here's a picture of the ring that my parents got me for making the Olympic Team. It is the same as the one my grandfather, father and uncles all have, and it fills me with pride to follow the family tradition and join them in owning one. My whole life I have admired their rings and dreamed of getting one for myself one day. I guess you could say it was the tangible dream that was attached to the dream of making the Olympics. Needless to say, when they gave it to me at dinner the other night I was super excited, it is definitely one of the best gifts I have ever received, so thank you to them again. It's also gotten me that much more excited to be going to the Olympics. Up until now, making the team has been pretty much just having my name on a list, and while it is a great list to be on, sometimes it doesn't feel 100% real. Getting this ring has made me feel like an Olympian, and made me proud to be the 5th person from my family, and 3rd generation to be one. Over the next month I know I'm going to experience some incredible things, and I know that I'm going to enjoy the whole Olympic experience, from the Opening Ceremonies to the racing, and that they will be memories that I never forget. This gift has reminded me of that. While I am not satisfied with just going to the Olympics, I'm there to compete and will do everything I can to have my best race and be in contention for a medal, I will make sure to enjoy it while I'm there, and this ring will be a reminder for my whole life of what I have already achieved, no matter what place I come. Of course now that I have a ring just like my uncles, dad and grandfather, I can concentrate on bringing home some other precious medal from the Olympics...

Oh ya, and I found this little excerpt from an old book that my grandfather had.

The year 1948 of the Second Age. Here follows the account of Oldershaw, Olympian of Canada, and the finding of the Ring of Power. "It has come to me, the One Ring. It should be an heirloom of my family. All those who follow in my bloodline should be bound to its fate, for I will risk no hurt to the Ring. It is precious to me..."

Cool eh? Sounds familiar. Well, that's all for now, thanks for reading and keep your paddle in the water.

I’m just finishing up a hard week of training here in Ottawa. It’s gone really quickly and I wish I could stay longer, but I’m running out of weeks before we leave and I need to get home for a bit. We’ve been having a lot of fun on and off the water and I think that’s really helped me with my training. Morty, Kyle and Jamie have been great training partners and it’s just been a great atmosphere all week. Yesterday we did the relay that I mentioned in my last post, where they did a 3 x 100m relay vs. me doing a 300m. I got really pumped up and ended up beating them, although it may have been mainly due to poor exchanges. Never the less, I felt really fast that whole workout and I got off the water telling myself that I can win the Olympics. I think that belief is really important going into any race. Even if you aren’t the favourite, or if nobody else thinks you can win, if you go in with the attitude that you are capable of winning it will help your chances. That doesn’t mean that you go in saying “I am going to win”, or “I have to win”, but just the belief in yourself that it is possible will give you the confidence to succeed.

Friday afternoon is always an easy, fun paddle, and this week was no exception. All week we were watching the bantams at Rideau (there are about 7 million of them) running, swimming and paddling around having a great time, so we decided to follow their example. We went out in some river runner K1’s with splash skirts on and using dragonboat paddles and tried to do Eskimo rolls. It was successful for the most part, but we did all have to bail out occasionally.

Tomorrow will be my last day training at Rideau this summer, and I’d like to thank the club again for letting me train here and to everyone that took the time to talk to me and wish me well. All the best to the club and its members, I look forward to being back this fall.

I’m also looking forward to getting home to Burloak, where I have to get out in a few crew boat practices so that I don’t get cut. I also have to get out and cox the girls’ war canoes and make sure they are on track for Nationals. No, actually, I have no doubt they are on track, I just haven't coxed in a while and need to make sure I've still got it. Hopefully the stand up paddling I did in Florida will help.

Alright, that’s all for now, I didn’t manage to video the relay, but I did get some cool video with my new waterproof camera attached to my boat. You can check it out below. Thanks for reading, keep your paddle in the water.

Hey folks,
This week I’m back training in Ottawa. Last week it was nice to get home and have some nice home cooked meals and be around the club and rest up a little bit for the race last weekend. Our second National Team Trials were being held in Montreal, and while I have already qualified for the team because of my Olympic Team nomination, I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to tune up for next month. I went into the weekend with almost no stress, but still focused on having strong performances. The first day was the 1000m, which I haven’t been specifically training for the last month, but a race is a race and I wanted to give Tom Hall, Canada’s Olympic entry in the event, a good race. I had a great start and was ahead of Tom for the first three or four hundred metres, but then the wind really picked up for a bit and I couldn’t keep up the same pace. Tom certainly did keep it up, he got ahead and stayed ahead, racing very well and showing that he is in top form and ready for Beijing. I finished second and was happy with my race. A thousand metres can feel like a long way though when you’ve been training more for the five hundred, that’s for sure. The next day I got to race what I have been training for, so I put a little more focus on each race and tried to work on different things in the heats and semifinals. Tom had to bow out of the five hundred because of a sore shoulder, but I still had plenty of competition from the rest of a very deep Canadian Canoe Team. I felt pretty good in the race and made a good move around half way that put me in control of the race, but I still have to work on really nailing the start so that I can be amongst the leaders during the first half at the Olympics. The key for me will be to get out to a good start without wasting too much energy for the first half of the race, then digging deep and just giving ‘er for the second half. If I can do that I believe I will be in the hunt for a medal. I had to chance to chat with Richard Dalton, who raced C1 500 at the last Olympics, placing an impressive 6th place. He was telling me and Tom how much fun racing at the Olympics is and how the crowd will pull you through the last part of the race so don’t be afraid to go for it. It really got me excited not just to be going to the Olympics, but for the actual racing, and that excitement has helped in training this week.
I’ve been lucky to have Jamie Andison, Kyle Jeffrey and Ian Mortimer here to help me train this week. Even though they just finished Trials and usually would be taking some time off, they really stepped up for me and agreed to help me out. So thanks a lot to them, I couldn’t work as hard as I need to without them. Tomorrow we are doing 300m pieces, and they are proposing that I do a three hundred while they do a 3 x 100m relay against me. It should be fun, hopefully we can get some video of it and I’ll put it up on here.
Also, in case you’ve been living under a rock with internet access limited to canoe4canada.com, Adam van Koeverden has been nominated as the flag bearer for Canada at the Opening Ceremonies. Congratulations to him, it is well deserved and I know he will represent us all well.
Alright, that’s all for now, time to get to bed and rest up for tomorrow’s relay. Until next time, keep your paddle in the water.

Paddlers the world over are mourning the loss of two time Olympic Champion György Kolonics of Hungary today. He collapsed in his boat this morning during a training session in Budapest on the Danube River, where he lost consciousness and could not be revived by paramedics. The likely cause is heart failure. Kolonics had currently been training for his 5th Olympic Games, and was reigning World Champion in C2 500 and a heavy favourite for a medal in both distances.

This news comes as shock to everyone, and even as I read the news stories it is hard to believe it is actually true. Just weeks ago we saw Kolonics at the World Cups, looking as fit and healthy as ever. Seeing him at regattas has always made me somewhat star-struck, as he has been a hero of mine since I was a little kid. He was the probably the first international paddler I learned of, and I used to watch videos of his races over and over again when I was a young paddler, in absolute awe of how fast he could go and intrigued by his unique paddling style. I remember writing a paper in school about my “dream team” C4 and he was my uncontested number one pick. When he switched from C2 to C1 and won the Olympics in Sydney, he amazed me once again and became one of the true legends of our sport. In his amazing career Kolonics has won 2 Gold and 2 bronze Olympic Medals, and a record setting 15 World Championships.

Since growing up and making the Senior World Team, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and competing against Kolo. The Canadian and Hungarian Teams are pretty close, two of our coaches are from Hungary and we have always been friends with the Hungarian athletes. While I didn’t know him well, Kolo was close with the Budays, so I have spent some time with him, sharing drinks after regattas and saying hello when we see each other at the race course. Even with the language barrier, it was easy to see how great of a guy he was, and how much he loved canoeing. He was also very humble and nice to everyone at the race course, even if you weren’t a world champion like him, he still had time to say hello. To a nineteen year old at his first World Championships in 2002, that meant a lot to me, and it raised my esteem for him that much more. In 2006 I had the privilege of standing on the podium with him at a World Cup in the 4x100m C1 relay. We both were the lead off guys for our teams, and I got really pumped up to be lined up beside him, and ended up getting our team a lead that we held on to for the win. The race was an amazing experience, with all the teams having a great time and joking around with each other after the race and on the podium. Kolonics was a class act, congratulating us with a smile and it was an honour to get our pictures taken with him on the podium.


The more the shock of this tragedy wears off, the sadder I become. I was glad I only had to do an easy paddle after learning the news, as I really didn’t feel motivated to do anything else. The suddenness and timing of it are what make it so tragic. Kolonics was thought to be in perfect health, in the prime of his life at just 36 years old. He was training for his 5th Olympics which would have most likely been the finale of his illustrious career. Not only that, but I believe he was planning to get married once he was done. It is a sad day for all of us, and our thoughts go out to his family, friends and team mates, and we send our deepest condolences to them all. The whole paddling world is mourning his loss and he will never be forgotten.

Hello Everbody!

Greetings to all you cyber surfers out there. Well, I’m nearing the end of my training camp in Ottawa and thus far it has gone extremely well. I’m happy with the way I am paddling and have been putting in a lot of hard work on the water. Last week was a bit of a shock to the body, and early this week I was feeling quite fatigued, but I got through it by making sure I ate and rested properly, and the last few days have been great training days. I have been trying to do really hard race intensity practices on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, because those are the days that I will be racing at the Olympics. I also am trying to practice in all kinds of wind conditions because I know that the course in Beijing is pretty wide open so we could be at the mercy of the weather. The last two Olympic regattas have had some extremely windy days, so I want to be ready for anything. Yesterday’s practice started out with three minutes at 100%, and we did it on Mooney’s bay in a big side/head wind. It started out really well, I was moving the boat nicely and it felt almost effortless for the first half. Then my arms started tightening up because of the extra steering I was doing (along with some motorboat wash…), and just like in a race it started to get pretty painful pretty quickly, but I think I pushed through it fairly well. We followed it up with a bunch of one minute pieces, and even though I was pretty dead from the three minutes, I focused on paddling well and if anything I felt even better than before.

This morning we did some speed work which was a lot of fun for me. We started out with an 80% 1000m to make sure we were properly warmed up and didn’t hurt ourselves during the sprints. It made me realize that I may not have been warming up quite enough the last few weeks, and I think I will try to make sure to add specific warm up pieces to my workouts from now on rather than just doing what feels about right. We then did a bunch of 20 and 10 seconds pieces all out and I felt better than I have in a long time at that speed. I found I could really pump up the stroke rate while still putting in good quality strokes.

After practice the Bantams were having a fun regatta at the club along with a pancake breakfast. I got to race C2 with three awesome partners, and although we tipped during one of the races and right after the finish of another one, I had an awesome time racing with the young kids. I also was in a great C4 that took the home the gold. The atmosphere was really great and it was really inspiring to see so many kids out there having so much fun paddling. It brought back memories of when I was a kid and how much fun we used to have on the creek and reminded me why I love paddling so much. Every day at the club there are so many kids around paddling and playing games, it is easy to get excited about our sport and is a great atmosphere to be around. The pancakes refueled me after all my races, and also induced a long and much needed nap in the afternoon.

This afternoon was a relaxing paddle with a stop at the Tarzan rope. I paddled back in Adam van Koeverden’s K1, which is always a fun challenge. Props to Aruss who paddled back in my C1 on the right (his wrong side). I hope he isn’t too sore in the morning. To some people it may sound like a simple thing to switch sides while canoeing, but in our sport we are very specialized and only train on one side, so when we occasionally try to switch we actually look like beginners. So if you ever want a chance to beat an Olympic paddler, challenge him to a race on his wrong side. Even if it’s your first time out you may have a chance!

Until next time, thanks for reading and keep your paddle in the water.

Hey Everyone,

Well I just came back from one of the most competitive games of ten trick in the history of the game. With the ranking list recently being published, it was no surprise that C4C were in a 4 way tie for the number one ranking. In fact, the only surprise was how high Pellini was ranked, as most experts had him around 4000. Now normally you would have to wait months, even years before 4 top ten ranked players would all play in one match, so it was truly "UNPRECEDENTED" (Aruss nov. 2007) when the top 4 players all sat down to test their skills against each other, in what is already being to referred to as one of the all time classics. I started out as the dealer, which can be a curse, but Aruss and Gab saved me from being forced to take it and duked it out with each other. The following three hands were so competitive that three of us went off in each round. When playing against such masters of the game, the strategies and subtleties that go on can make it incredibly hard to get your tricks, and even harder to get an big lead early, as the other three will make sure no one gets out of reach. Morty had a steady start with 4 consecutive zero calls to take the lead, with Aruss close behind and me and Gab playing well but still heading down into the negatives. After the sixth trick I was down to -40, but with Morty winning at only 60 I knew I still had a chance. In the last 4 rounds the lead changed 4 times, but I kept winning big hands and digging myself out of the basement. I ended up taking three tricks with my three Aces in the final round to take the victory over Gab by twenty points. I have to say that it was an honour to play against such great players, who all still deserve their #1 rankings based on their amazing play. I'm looking forward to more games in the time to come, hopefully with some more players in the newly developed Ten Trick Elimination. We need to stay sharp as the mens kayakers are currently having their own Olympic Ten Trick Camp in Montreal.

In other news, yesterday was Canada's 141st Birthday, and it was great to spend it here in the Nation's Capital. We started the day by getting up early and heading out to the Annual HBC Run for Canada. It is a great event that raises money for 200 National Team Athletes to help with their training and living expenses. I was one of 3000 people running in the 10km run, and it was pretty cool to see the crowd of people all wearing the same shirt run across the bridge with the parliament buildings in the background. It's nice to know that not only are there are lots of active people in Ottawa, but also lots of people supporting our Olympic Athletes. I started the run out at a pretty good pace with Aruss, even though the girls took off on us in the first 1km just like last year (maybe Gab can teach you how to pace yourselves at the start girls...). After about half way Aruss' legs realized that they haven't run that far in nearly half a year, so he started to slow down a bit. I caught up to another runner going a bit faster and we pushed a bit harder for the rest, with a short shoelace tying pit stop along the way. I was a little under 41 minutes, which is decent for me considering we didn't really race at the start. My race at the Olympics will only take about 2 minutes, so I'm not too concerned with my long distance stuff right now, but it's nice to now that I'm in good shape over all heading into the next few weeks of hard training, which started a few days ago.

After 2 weeks of easier, longer, more technical paddling workouts, it was nice to get right back into action this week with some really good hard workouts on Monday and Tuesday. It feels good to be back in a training camp environment with a solid training group that can push me on the water. I feel pretty fast right now and am very focused on what I have to do. Every workout I do I think about how it is going to help me be as fast at 500m as I can, and I focus on that before and during the workout. The water here in Ottawa has a bit of a current because of the heavy rainfall lately, but it is still a great place to paddle and the weather has been beautiful so far, and the Rideau Canoe Club is treating us very well.

Tonight they even had a Potluck dinner to welcome all of us, and it was a great event with tons of people showing up with some really great food. I don't want to pick a favourite, but I have to say that the Honey Pear Summer Salad was truly exceptional, congratulations to whoever put that beauty together. The evening ended with a great game of 4 Square with all the Rideau kids showing us their mad skills. It was a really fun yet competitive match that left Aruss with a scraped knee that may sting a little in C2 tomorrow morning. Thanks to everyone at Rideau for putting on such a nice event.

Alright, well that's all for now, I hope everyone is enjoying what we can finally call summer. Until next time, keep your paddle in the water.