By Jonah Brunet
The accomplishment, top-of-the-line training resources, living out a high school athletic dream: for Canada Games competitors and Ottawa Rowing Club alumni Matt Christie and André Pelletier, the places you go take a backseat to the people you meet along the way.
“The people I’ve met through rowing are my closest friends now and some of the only people I can comfortably relate to,” Christie said by e-mail from Austria, where he was competing in the U23 World Rowing Championships. “When you meet someone who is willing to put so much time and energy into the same sport you do, there is a very good chance that you’ll be quite compatible.”
Pelletier noted that training full-time can cut off a high-performance athlete from their childhood friends and family, who are often in a different city or even a different country. The loss of these supports causes athletes to fall back on their teammates for companionship.
“We’re not just spending time in training, we’ll go out for team bonding and we swim pretty regularly in the canal,” the 19-year-old said of his fellow rowers training in St. Catharines. “Everybody’s getting along pretty well.”
Both Christie and Pelletier got their start in Ottawa before rowing took them to Queen’s University and the University of Western Ontario.
In contrast, the third Ottawa Rowing Club member competing in the Canada Games, Elizabeth Turner, only took up the sport after she began her studies at the University of Southern California. The 20-year-old has enjoyed a quick rise in the sport; she earned alternate status for the U23 worlds Canadian team.
Christie recalls first rowing at a summer camp when he was 12, while Pelletier was introduced to the sport by his Grade 9 guidance counsellor.
“I really liked the idea of the sport,” the Glebe Collegiate Institute grad explained. “It just seemed so simple to me that you get out what you put in.”
The most important people Pelletier and Christie bonded with through rowing were coaches and trainers, who influenced their lives like few others. Ottawa Rowing Club coach Ed Fournier impacted Christie the most.
“He is easily one of the most devoted coaches I have ever known,” wrote the 20-year-old who placed 17th overall in lightweight men’s single at the U23 worlds. “I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today without his dedication to the sport and to our development as athletes.”
Pelletier’s role model in athletics is his father, who he admires for balancing a profession in teaching with training for ironman triathlons.
“There’s something about that work ethic,” Pelletier said of his father’s influence. “It showed me what I can do. I’ve got that in me I think.”
Pelletier rowed single all through high school due to his size and strength (he is 6’ 2” and 200 lbs.), and is glad to be surrounded by people he can finally row cooperatively with.
The national training centre in Welland, Ont. “is great because there are actually other people who are meeting the same level of commitment, so it’s easier to row other boats than the single,” he signaled.
Pelletier will be rowing bow seat in the men’s double scull and three seat in the quadruple scull at the Canada Games, while Christie will be racing the single scull, which he calls the perfect mix of finesse and aggression.
“You are completely independent in the single and completely in control of your own performance,” he highlighted.
The rowing events take place in the second week of the Canada Summer Games, from Aug. 13-17.