LIMA, PERU (July 31, 2019) – The 2019 Pan American Games were an incredible success for Canoe Kayak Canada’s Sprint paddlers. The team captured 10 medals during their four days of competition in Lima, standing on the podium in nearly all of the contested events.
Canada’s women’s K4 crew of Alanna Bray-Lougheed (Oakville, ON), Alexa Irvin (Kentville, N.S.), Andréanne Langlois (Trois-Rivières, Que.) and Anna Negulic (Bedford, N.S.) secured the very first gold medal of the Games for Team Canada on Sunday. The women’s crew finished the 500m race with a time of 1 minute and 34.36 seconds, with Mexico and Argentina coming 2nd and 3rd, respectively.
“We were all feeling really optimistic going in to this race. Our training leading up to the event was going really well so we were excited to get on the water and put a great race under our belts, said the crew. “We’ve seen so much support already from all of Canada, so winning this medal is like a big thank you!”
Rio Olympian Andréanne Langlois secured three more medals during the event for a total of four medals at the Games. She won silver in the K1 500m, silver in K1 200m and added another gold to her record in K2 500m with partner Alanna Bray-Lougheed, who earned her second gold medal in this event.
“We took it really seriously and we executed our plan perfectly, which was really nice. K2 is just as important for me, especially because Andréanne and I are really close friends and the fact that we were able to come together and do something great was really awesome,” added Bray-Lougheed after their K2 win.
Dominik Crête (Trois-Rivières, Que.) brought in the final gold medal for Canada on Tuesday, putting down an excellent race on the last day of competition in the K1 200m event, beating Ecuador’s Cesar de Cesare and Argentina’s Ruben Rezola.
The Canadian paddlers medal streak began with Drew Hodges (Ottawa, Ont.) and Craig Spence’s (Dartmouth, N.S.) silver medal win in the men’s C2 1000m race on Saturday, just behind Cuba.
“I am always so proud to represent Canada so winning a medal at this big of a competition is such an amazing feeling,” said Spence. “Moving forward, this is a big step towards Tokyo. This is a great learning experience about how to compete at a Games and against high level competitors. Drew and I are an even stronger team after this competition and it will greatly help our growth as athletes.”
The men’s K4 crew of Dominik Crête, Eric Ellery (Toronto, Ont.), Marshall Hughes (Waverly, N.S.) and Jarret Kenke (Saskatoon, Sask.) just missed the podium and came in fourth place in a tight battle against Mexico.
On Monday, the team proved their dominance again by securing five more medals for Canada. Marshall Hughes opened up the day coming second in the K1 1000m event.
“Very recently I switched up my strategy. I have gone from racing in front to kind of catching up. My coach and I have been working on really pacing it out rather than just going for it,” added Hughes after his silver medal win. “It took a lot of confidence to believe in it, but I did. I raced how I’ve been training in the past few months, so it really paid off believing in my race strategy and I came through with some of the best times I’ve ever gotten.”
Drew Hodges then took the bronze in the C1 1000m event, winning his second medal of the competition. Later that day, K2 1000m crew Jarret Kenke and Jacob Steele (Halifax, N.S.) captured the silver medal, after only having trained together for a couple of weeks.
“It’s a fantastic feeling to be able to start with nothing and build so much in such a short time.” said Kenke.
The women’s C2 500m crew of Rowan Hardy-Kavanaugh (Ottawa, Ont.) and Anne Sophie Lavoie-Parent (Trois-Rivières, Que.) won the bronze on Monday afternoon. Lavoie-Parent expressed “how lucky they feel to have the world champions, Laurence Vincent-Lapointe and Katie Vincent, to train with so they can see how fast they are evolving ahead of Tokyo.”
In the women’s C1 200m, Anna Roy-Cyr (Lac Beauport, Que.) finished first in her semi-final, and placed 5th in the final race.
View the full list of results here.
The Canadian canoe slalom team begins their Pan Am Games experience on Friday August 2nd and will compete until August 4th. The slalom team is named below.
Men’s Kayak and Extreme Slalom
Keenan Simpson (Ottawa, Ont.)
Women’s Kayak and Extreme Slalom
Olivia Norman (Ottawa, Ont.)
Men’s Canoe and Extreme Slalom
Liam Smedley (Dunrobin, Ont.)
Women’s Canoe and Extreme Slalom
Lois Betteridge (Ottawa, Ont.)
Coach (Canoe Slalom)
Michal Staniszewski (Gatineau, Que.)
Lima 2019 Pan American Games – Canoe Slalom
Where:
Rio Cañete, Lunahuaná, Peru
When:
Friday, August 2 (9:30am to 2:30pm PET) (10:30am to 3:30pm EST)
Saturday, August 3 (9:00am to 12:22pm PET) (10:00am to 1:22pm EST)
Sunday, August 4 (9:00am to 5:00pm PET) (10:00am to 6:00pm EST)
How to follow:
Visit the Lima 2019 Pan Am Games website here.
Visit Canoe Kayak Canada’s website to get more information and make sure to follow @PlanetCanoe and @CanoeKayakCAN for more live updates.
Subscribe to Canoe Kayak Canada’s mailing list to get all news and results directly to your email.
About Canoe Kayak Canada
Canoe Kayak Canada (CKC) is the national governing body for competitive paddling in Canada, one of Canada’s top performing summer sports with a total of 24 Olympic medals, and a leader in the Paralympic movement. Canoe Kayak Canada is a member-based organization that includes an intricate network of clubs as well as provincial, territorial and divisional paddling associations. Elite National Team athletes proudly represent Canada at various competitions around the globe – most notably the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, Pan American Games, ICF World Cups as well as Junior, Under 23 and Senior World Championships. Follow Canoe Kayak Canada on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
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For more information:
Laurel MacAdam
Communications Assistant
Colleen Coderre
Communications Lead