St. Catharines Rowing Club Monthly Newsletter - February 2021 About 100 years ago – wait… it was last summer… Time feels very fluid these days. Last summer, before Lauren started her series of athlete interviews – all of which have been exceptional – I said I wanted to profile a few club members that are, in my estimation, overdue for recognition. This update is about one such member. As we begin our 118th year we have had a legion of outstanding members. Stan Lipinski’s 100-year biography of the Club lists them up through 2003 and we have had many more since then. Brian Thorne has not won the most Henley medals of all time or competed in the most Head races ever (actually, he may have). What he has done though is demonstrate a lifelong passion and commitment to our club and our sport and I wanted to single him out for reasons that will become obvious. In the summer of 1968 having completed grade 9, Brian came down to the Island and coach Bill Dick told him he could get in the bow of the “B” 135lb 8+ or get in the coxswain’s seat. He opted for the bow. In the summer of 1970, he won his first Henley (Jr. 135lb 8+) and he picked up another in 1971 (Sr. 145lb 8+). He discovered sculling in the summer of 1972 and then headed off to Western where he competed in the Head of the Trent for the first of 48 consecutive times! He won the Open 1X there 6 years in a row from 1974 to 1979.
In 1974 he represented Canada at the 1st World Lightweight Rowing Championships, and then he did it 8 more times. 1974 was also his first year at the Head of the Rideau in his single. He won this event 6 years in a row from 1974 to 1979. 1975 marked his first of 46 consecutive appearances at the Head of the Charles. He picked up 14 medals in his first 15 years. . Things get busy from here on. Marriage, a daughter, Teacher’s College at Brock, Silver at the World’s in Bled in 1979, Bronze at the World’s in 1981, Gold at the Pan American Games in 1987, and many more Henley and Head Race wins. It was not all glory though. There were a couple of knee operations, a hernia, a torn ACL and having his double with Dave Mossop sink after 30 km at the Head of the Montebello in 1978. Then (of course!) there is posing for Ken Danby’s “The Sculler” and his movie career playing opposite Nicholas Cage in “The Boy in Blue” - the story of Ned Hanlan. Danby was selected to design a set of Canadian Olympic coins for the 1976 Montreal Olympics at the same time he was named the first recipient of the “R. Tait McKenzie Chair for Sport” by the National Centre of Sports and Recreation in Ottawa. The result was his creation of six major watercolour studies of Olympic athletes, with each defining a specific Olympic discipline. Two years later they were published as a set of prints together with a book entitled “Danby: Images of Sport”. Appropriately, Danby once said that: “[Art] provides us with a clearer understanding of who we are, where we are, and where we have been, as human beings”*. In a 1978 article called “Athletes as Art” Hubert De Janlana described Danby's perspective: “Danby is fascinated with the parallels between the athlete and the artists, both of whom, he considers, require exceptional mental and physical discipline and unwavering dedication in order to excel.” The Olympic prints capture climactic moments of the sports they represent, which emphasizes the relation between sports and culture in Canadian society. *Paul Duval, “Ken Danby: The New Decade”, Toronto/New York, 1984, page 154 Brian was awarded SCRC Male Athlete of the Year twice. He has been an RCA umpire since 2008, a volunteer at Henley and other regattas for decades and he takes the Club official photo every year. He has been on the Board of SCRC since 1995. So why profile Brian? There may be other members that have competed as well and for as long – although there are not THAT many – but since I moved back to St. Catharines and joined the Board in 2016, I have been consistently impressed with his drive to make the club better. He told me his passion for the sport has not dimmed a bit since he was given the choice of the bow seat or the coxswain seat in 1968. I have come to respect him even more over this last year as the club has had to adapt to the pandemic. While he has missed competition as a master’s rower, his larger concern is looking for ways to introduce the sport to younger rowers. Like many that have spent decades rowing, Brian is convinced that if we can just get some new high school athletes down to the course and get them in a shell, they will – like him - be hooked for life! As we push through February with fingers crossed that there will be a Spring rowing season, I am asking our Board (and you…) to adopt a new mantra – WWBTD. If the pandemic is not fully lifted by April – WWBTD? If regattas are cancelled again this year – WWBTD? What Would Brian Thorne Do? He would find a way! With the support of our current rowers, coaches, and volunteers we will continue to introduce SCRC to new young athletes. And I am fully confident that some of them will build a rowing career as full and rich as Brian has… AuthorReflections from our President, Rick Crooker St. Catharines Rowing Club Presents
LK: Your dad obviously played a huge role in your rowing career, how did that relationship evolve from novice rowing when you were 11 years old, to now? MF: When I was younger, I wasn’t the fittest person. I had played minor football, and I did the summer learn to row program. I didn’t like it all, I much preferred football. Rowing was just a summer activity. My dad made me do it for one year, and then that summer season, I won a race or two, and in grade 10 I started to develop it a bit more. He was my coach all through high school, and he really just built me into who I am today.
it that far, because everyone around me had been sculling for years at that point. I remember I got in the starting gates, on the Schuylkill river, where the first part of the race is on an angle, and once you get through the bridge, maybe 200m into the race, you really learn who’s in the lead at that point. So I had the same strategy: I was at a 38, 40 rate, just ticking along, and I came through the bridge and I was in the lead! So I had to keep building the lead. By about 1000m in, my legs were totally shot. My parents were in the grandstands, and my brother’s supposed to be recording, but he was too excited and forgot to actually start recording. My dad’s not even looking at the course, he’s just beside himself. And then he looks up and sees me in podium contention! When I get to the 1000m I know I have to turn it up, but I can’t really, I’m just exhausted. The lead starts to close, and first place blows past me, second place just beats me, I beat fourth, by like .15, but then right after I crossed the finish line, I flipped! No one cared about the first or second, because they were all so concerned about me. So that was really the start of my sculling career, and kind of how I built my focus on rate in the rowing world, which is kind of how I’ve excelled. But my dad was definitely the building block of my rowing, and then I just had to tweak it on my own. He’s always checking in on me. LK: That Stotes competition must have been such a wild day for you, with the semis in the morning and that final in the afternoon. MF: Oh, yea for sure, plus the drive home that night! And my brother forgot to record the race, and that’s the one race I’d love to see again. Did you ever race in Philly? LK: I raced at Stotes twice in high school, but only once on the Schuylkill, and it totally messes with your head when you’re heading into the bridge. I was closest to one of the bridge abutments, so I truly had no idea where I was at that point in the race. But I suppose that what makes everyone just get out of the gates as quickly as they can, and race with blinders on for the first half. How special was it to have your dad so closely tied to your rowing career, as opposed to the typical parent-athlete style of staying in the grandstands? MF: My parents have been incredible. Rowing, you obviously don’t get much funding, and when I was out west (with the national team), they were personally funding me. When I went to U23’s in Italy the first time, they generously funded me to go to that. And it was such an exciting time, it was a little last minute, and I was just so excited. And at the grandstands in Italy, I was sitting there watching the practices go by, and I hear, “Finley! Matt Finley!” and it’s my mom and dad. They came! They didn’t tell me! They’ve been to Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Peru, everywhere to support me. LK: Given your experiences both with SCRC and Brock University, what does Henley Island mean to you? MF: Well, it’s home. If I go to any other course, it’s just not St. Catharines. I can still just think about calm days in St. Catharines, just chilling in my single. That’s my home course, and I wish I could train there all year long, but unfortunately here, there’s wintertime and when the wind kicks up, you hate that course so much. But when it’s nice weather, and the water’s calm, it’s the best place to be. LK: It is too bad that we can’t row all year round, because the permanent dock is so tempting. Of course we can’t row right now with the lockdown, but in early December I was out on the water with a group and we ran onto some ice! Luckily it was quite thin, so there wasn’t any damage, but that certainly is an advantage for our club to have the option to row all year round. MF: There does get to a point when you’re rowing that it’s so cold and it’s not enjoyable. When I was out west there were days when it didn’t feel helpful to be in the cold. But what’s so nice about here is that there is a whole winter season to do cross training and it just gives you a breath.
LK: With three U23 World Championships experience, and the gold in the 2015 quad, you were certainly quite successful. I saw on your bio for Brock University that you consider anyone to win a Worlds as your role model. What did that mean to you to join those ranks? MF: It was a huge accomplishment at the time. In 2014, we were inexperienced, and we came 4th in the semi-final, so winning the next year was really exciting. But in regards to role models, it’s always cool to see Canada excel. When we won, it honestly just felt like a job well done and I think the more you race, the more it’s kind of the same. If I were to race for SCRC in the single, or for Canada in the single, it’s still the same race. You have the same process and intention. But, I don’t know, if what I’ve done inspires people to be better, to be active, then that’s great. LK: Well speaking of inspiring people, could you talk about your recent 100k erg you completed for your friend, Nick? MF: The idea for that kind of came from my new interest in running, that was really forced by the pandemic. I had done a few marathons, a few half marathons, and then I had the crazy idea to do a 100k run, so I ran from the Service Road, all the way to Toronto. My right knee was really acting up in the last 5k, so I had to walk a bit of the last 5k, but I did it. So that was my big accomplishment for running, and then shortly after, my buddy unfortunately had a stroke. We went to primary school together, and I wanted to do something to help him recover faster. So when thinking of what to do a fundraiser for him. I wasn’t going to run again, but I realized that the erg was the next goal. So I got permission from his family to do a 100k erg, and I didn’t really train for the piece, the longest I had been on the erg for recently was about 30k, and before that all I had been doing was short pieces. So we broadcasted the piece on Facebook and Instagram, my mom was my little nutritionist, she kept bringing me fruit. We had a lot of people come over, cheering me on, spraying water on me! But the goal was just to raise money for him, and he’s recovering extremely fast! I always post updates about him, he took a swing at a golf club the other day, and he’s making a quicker recovery than most expected. It was just something I could do to help a friend out. LK: It’s such an incredible thing to do, especially for a friend. We’ll attach the link to the GoFundMe to this article in the event that anyone wishes to donate. Between that erg, and the 100k run you did earlier that month, what motivates you to complete these extreme athlete challenges, and how do they compare to a typical rowing event? What did you do to occupy your mind in the middle of those long pieces? MF: They were definitely some dark times in the middle of those pieces. When I was doing the erg, we had some movies playing, but after a while, I lost interest in that and watched some Olympic races, and then in the final 10k, I had a bunch of buddies over and that got me through it. But when I was 60k in, that was pretty dark. Interestingly, that was the same spot that was the toughest in both the run and the erg. LK: What did you prefer, the run or the erg? MF: Mentally, the erg messed me up more. Physically the run was more difficult, and probably because I didn’t really train for the run. The longest I had run before that was 42k, which was triggered off of people telling me I couldn’t run 100k. And I was just motivated to prove them wrong! But the erg was mentally much tougher. Although physically, I think I was just so used to the form, and rowing stroke, that it didn’t bother me as much, I’ve just up and down that slide so many times. But I did, unexpectedly get these blood blisters under the nails but they didn’t really come in until after I finished the piece. The hydration was also pretty tough to get through. LK: Is there anything else, other than proving nay-sayers wrong, that motivates you to complete these ultra athletic events? MF: It’s also to prove to myself that I can do it, but being a bit removed from the rowing world, I just want to keep doing things that excite me. The first day of quarantine last year, I did my first marathon, when before that I had only ever done 14k at the most. But after that, I just kept wanting to beat my times. And just looking at people excelling online, that’s also very motivating. LK: Do you see yourself going back on the water soon, once the lockdown is over? MF: Oh yea! If there’s a racing season this summer, coming up, I’ll definitely be out there. I haven’t done much on the erg recently in terms of shorter distances, lots of low rates. I’ll do 500m at a 20, and see how that goes. Or a 2k at a 20, and then a 2k at a 30 and compare them. But I do feel like I’m in the best cardio and strength shape I’ve ever been at. But I’m just excited to see what I can do. LK: What lessons have you learned from rowing that you have carried into other areas of your life? MF: Teamwork, for sure. I try to show up on time the best I can; work ethic. Sometimes I’ll be doing labour jobs, and when other people are tired, or want to stop, I just keep going. But definitely teamwork and believing in your team. The time management, I’m still working on, but work ethic, and believing in the people around you is something rowing instilled me. AuthorLauren Kelly is a junior at the University of Notre Dame, where she competes on the rowing team and majors in history and Irish studies. A long time member of the St. Catharines Rowing Club, she recently stepped into the role of social media coordinator for the club. St. Catharines Rowing Club presents A Conversation with Wendy Wiebe
LK: It seems as though it took little time for your rowing career to be headed in the right direction, with your four gold medals at CSSRA. While you were obviously successful early on, what were the biggest motivating factors in your decision to pursue international competition? WW: It was just little steps that continued to open doors. The biggest thing about rowing is that you can measure your success by how training is going; not always how racing is going because it depends on how everyone else is doing with that, but it just kind of happened by accident, at the beginning at least. With history too, when I started rowing, Canada was not a rowing powerhouse. These things happened step by step over time. When I started rowing with the National Team, the goal was to make the final. It didn’t even feel like it was in the realm of possibility to win when I started. But that all kind of happened over time. So really, it was just a process that had to be taken step by step. I trained mostly with boys: Dave Boyes, Peter Somerwil, and we all fed off each other. There were plans at the end of my career, but it felt like it just kind of happened by chance. You know what it’s like, you get to the end of the season and think you’re never doing it again and then you’re right back at it a month again. I was in the right era too, because in 1984, the lightweight women had an exhibition race at the Worlds, and then it was ushered in more permanently after that. I started sculling after I got married, and then the opportunity for the Olympics added another three years to the schedule. So really, it was just a lot of luck and being surrounded by good people. LK: It’s really interesting, because of everyone I have spoken with, no one said they were intent on going to the Olympics, but rather, that they took care of all the little things, and it fell into place, and your statement really just reaffirmed that sentiment! What was your experience with the St. Catharines Rowing Club? WW: I had a great time. The last five years of my competitive career I wasn’t training very much at St. Catharines, but it has, and will, always be home. I always say you can take the girl out of St. Catharines, but you can’t take the St. Catharines out of the girl; it’s home to me. I just have amazing memories of rowing in the summer there, we just had so much fun. It was what I wanted to do every summer. SCRC holds a very special place in my heart. I just started up there again after 10 or 15 years, and it doesn’t feel like I ever left. LK: It really is such a special place. I always find that when I come home from university, I feel the emotional reconnection when I see my family, but when I drive down Main Street in Port Dalhousie, that’s when I feel like I’m geographically home. How did rowing play a part in your post-secondary education and career? WW: I rowed at University of Western, in the heavyweight boat, but I was always a lightweight. When I finished university, I kept rowing. I was always a sweeper. I came back to St. Catharines and got married the year I graduated. But at the time, if you didn’t own a single, then you didn’t scull. I was having trouble finding people to row with, so in ‘87, I rowed in the lightweight four. When I came back, I didn’t have anyone to row with, so I bought a single to keep training in, while I was working full time and married. I had to borrow money from my dad to buy the single, I had never sculled before, and my husband pushed me off the dock and I was bawling! I started training with the St. Catharines group and went from there. After 3 years, in 1990, I started rowing in the double. In 1992, I quit my full time job to row full time. We won a bronze at ‘93 Worlds, and that was when I started to leave home more and train with the National Team LK: To continue off of that, what was the process like for you with the National Team, given the numerous times you dominated the podium? WW: I did start working full time from 87-92, and around that time, Mike Spracklen came in and reinvented rowing in Canada at the highest level. I was only doing 2 sessions a day, by myself; I resisted doing 3 times a day because I was working, I was married, but I kept coming in third place. At that time, there were rumblings that a lightweight double was going to happen for the Worlds, and so I thought that if I was going to do it, I had to fully pursue it and stop making excuses. So I relocated, and started training with the National Team. I finally gave in, and it was the right decision, it made all the difference. That summer was when we won our first world championship. I had to put my career on hold, but that’s ok, it was the right thing to do for me. The national team is really the same thing as club, at its barest of examinations. You’re jumping through hoops and doing what they tell you to do. One of the reasons Canada became so successful because of the incredibly competitive training environment. It would be everyone, all in singles, just going up and down the course everyday, really doing a “battle paddle”. Twice a week, we would have rated pieces; I think on Wednesdays would be a 5k piece, and they would compare it with the Gold Medal Standard. So we would know who the fastest one on the team was every week. If you were having a bad day, someone who was having a good day would drag you along. It was an awesome, grueling atmosphere. Images from The St. Catharines Rowing Club: 100 Years in a Row, Stan Lapinski LK: I’m sure you learned so many lessons that are applicable to outside life in that environment. WW: Absolutely, you learn how to work with people, what to do when you get shot down. How to win and lose with grace. That’s what I find so upsetting about this era of COVID, how many people we have lost. Not even at the national team, but the grade nine’s, the grade 12’s, they’ve lost such great times in their lives for competition. It’s a very sad time for rowing. LK: In the 1996 Olympic Games, you came down with a terrible flu virus the week before the race, and still managed to finish seventh. What did that experience teach you? What did you do to pull yourself through that race? WW: That was awful. But I didn’t know if it was nerves, or what leading up to the event. Truly a terrible experience, it felt like I was rowing through mud. To be at your best and to lose is one thing, but to not be able to perform at your best is something else. But, through that, though, I learned that the same people that loved me when I was going fast still loved me when I wasn’t. I had great teammates. I got emails from people from all different times of my life demonstrating support. It was also the end of my career. So not only was I done rowing, but it wasn’t a great ending to that time in my life. But I think that things happen for a reason; I learned that the people who I surrounded myself with demonstrated that they were in my corner no matter what. Wendy Wiebe and Colleen Miller at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. (CP PHOTOS/ COA/ Claus Andersen)
LK: What do you make of your legacy as one of the most decorated rowers in Canadian history?
AuthorLauren Kelly is a junior at the University of Notre Dame, where she competes on the rowing team and majors in history and Irish studies. A long time member of the St. Catharines Rowing Club, she recently stepped into the role of social media coordinator for the club. |
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