By Michael Lapointe
Two young guns and a two-time Olympian from the Rideau Canoe Club represented Canada internationally in May and early June, as Steven Jorens, Ben Tardioli and Madeline Schmidt collected several medals from competitions in Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic.
The athletes have one big thing in common besides where they train: all have the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics squarely on their minds.
A kayaking veteran who’s been in the sport for 16 years and attended the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, 31-year-old Jorens raced for Canada’s men’s K4 (four-man kayak) 1,000-metre crew at World Cup #2 before an injury slowed him for the third World Cup, which wrapped up on June 2.
The Aurora, Ont. native is now gearing back up for the June 21-23 national team trials in Welland, Ont., which will be used to decide who goes to the ICF Sprint World Championships in late August.
“It’s pretty encouraging right now because there’s about seven or eight guys who are all working towards making the team,” signals the Carleton University mechanical engineering student who owns the distinction of being the only national team member to hold a pilot’s license. “I think it’s going to be a pretty exciting next few years.”
Tardioli and Schmidt are part of a young crop of national paddlers striving to keep Canada at the top of the paddling world for years to come.
Tardioli recently returned from the Piestany Race in Slovakia with the under-23 team in late May. He finished second with a time of 39.81 in the U23 C-1 (solo canoe) 200 m, and paired with teammate Antoine Meunier to narrowly defeat the host Slovaks and win the U23 C-2 200.
“Europe has pretty good depth for canoeing, it’s always good competition when you go there,” highlights Tardioli, 23.
Ranked fifth nationally, Tardioli would like to earn a spot for this year’s world championships, which would advance his cause towards reaching the Rio 2016 Games in three years’ time.
“I would say I’m on that path,” Tardioli remarks. “We’re young now, so in three years, we’ll be older, better, stronger. I would say this event is good experience for the Olympics.”
Kayaker Schmidt also had great success in Piestany, winning a silver medal in the junior K-1 200 m, another silver in the K-1 500, a bronze in the K1 1,000, and also teaming up with Andreanne Langlois to win gold in the U23 women’s K2 1,000. More recently, she helped the U23 K-4 team place fifth in Poland at the ICF World Cup 3.
“We were a lot closer to some of the crews we didn’t think we’d be that close to,” highlights Schmidt, 18. “I’ve never been at a senior World Cup before, so it was a pretty big experience.”
Schmidt and Tardioli are both solid bets to be wearing the maple leaf again later this summer, but this time it would be on home soil for the junior and U23 Canoe Sprint World Championships, set for Aug. 1-4 in Welland.