By Dan Plouffe
It was back to the regular grind at Woodroffe High School for Maddie Schmidt after Labour Day, but her summer was anything but ordinary as she collected piles of medals in national and international canoe-kayak competitions.
“It was an amazing season,” says the 18-year-old. “But it’s kind of nice to get home and kind of get away from it.”
Schmidt paddled for Canada at World Cups and other European events earlier this season, where the medal winning began. Most recently, she plucked five medals at the Canada Games in Sherbrooke, and then surpassed that haul at the Aug. 27-31 Canadian championships in Montreal, collecting five gold, a silver, and a bronze, including victories in each of her three individual under-19 races.
But there’s no doubt the medal that means the most to her was the bronze from the Aug. 1-4 world junior championships in Welland, Ont. Schmidt captured Canada’s first medal of the competition on home soil, although it took what seemed like ages to find out that she did cross the finish line in third place in the women’s K-1 200 metres.
“I was looking around for evidence to show me that I came third and the way I found out was the roar of the crowd,” the Rideau Canoe Club athlete recalls. “They started screaming, and I just knew they’d seen the results on the scoreboard. That was pretty exciting. I think I screamed a little bit. I got super happy, and then the tears started coming. It was overwhelming.”
Schmidt had beaten a paddler from Kazakhstan to the finish line by less than three hundredths of a second.
“I put so much into it,” she reflected. “I’d think about the specific practices that happened – like in the winter, running, or even on the water in summer. Those workouts added up and made a difference.”
Rideau coach Mike Robinson was first to hug Schmidt after the official results appeared.
“We built a really good relationship this summer and in this preparation,” highlights the paddler who took up the sport at her aunt’s Ottawa River Canoe Club. “I went into the crowd, and I went to see my mom and my family and they were all bawling. It was super cute.”
Junior worlds was easily the personal highlight of her season, but seeing her fellow Ottawa athletes excel at Canada Games and then nationals – where Rideau finished second in the overall club standings and won a club record number of gold medals – also stood out.
“It was incredible. It was super cool to be fighting for top spot,” Schmidt says, identifying a quality facility and some of Canada’s best coaches guiding a big base of athletes as Rideau’s keys to success.
“It just shows what we’re doing at the Rideau Canoe Club is working,” she adds.
Besides the top nationals results, Rideau was also the overall champs at the U13 and U15 Trillium provincials, while more experienced athletes at the club can count themselves amongst world’s best dragonboaters.
The 25 members of the Ottawa Galley Girls – ranging in age from 26 to 57 and all balancing careers and family along with intense training – most recently took silver at nationals in Victoria. Eleven team members represented Canada at the Dragonboat World Championships in Hungary earlier this summer; with Canadian Senior ‘A’ and ‘B’ crews winning gold in all four distances and the Premier Women taking a gold and a bronze.
Rideau’s Steven Jorens, a Carleton University mechanical engineering student from Aurora, also competed for Canada against the best sprint kayakers in the world, placing 14th overall in the K-4 men’s 1,000 m at the Aug. 28-Sept. 1 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Germany.
“We’re such a tight team. All our training groups are super close and we all train really hard together,” Schmidt underlines. “Even though kayaking is a fairly individual sport, it really is like a team environment at the Rideau Canoe Club.