(1978 Canoe Ontario Annual re-print)
My participation in three Olympic Games spans a very interesting period in the development of Canadian sports and Canadian canoeing. I first began paddling in 1964 under the guidance of Jim Renton. The very competitive attitude Bill Collins injected into the Mississauga Canoe Club inspired all of us to great successes and instilled high aspirations in all of us. With former Olympic competitors like Bill Collins coaching our attitudes as much as our techniques we all strived to be so far ahead of second that there was no question about our abilities. Gabor Joo's approach to competition added the importance of hard regular training along the lines of what competitors in Europe were doing. His knowledge from his background in competition back in Hungary directed our attitudes beyond the C.C.A., which until then ended each and every season. Early in 1968 Scott Lee and I began training together in the tandem with the goal of winning the 1968 Junior C-2 Canadian Championships. Gabor Joo's vigorous training made him a constant part of the afternoon activities on the river, setting a very high example. He complimented our technique and suggested what we should be doing in training. Scott and I soon began training alongside of Gabor Joo and thus began training harder than any other canoeists in the country. Mac Hickox, who had set his sights on the Junior C-1 Canadian Championships also worked on Gabor Joo's programmes for what he expected to be his last season in the sport.
Our win in the 1968 Junior C-2 was anti-climatic after our selection as Canada's entry in the Mexico Olympics C-2 1000 metres. All of us who trained under Gabor Joo's guidance went to the Olympics. Mac Hickox was selected to the U.S.A. Olympic Team. Wolf Ruck was selected to the kayak section of the Canadian team. The results are proof of Gabor Joo's insights into how an athlete should prepare. His methods were ahead of the times in Canadian athletics.
We arrived in Mexico wide-eyed and naive due to Canada's non-participation in international competition. The last time a Canadian canoeist had met the athletes from Europe in competition was at the Tokyo Olympics four years before. The wide gap had increased in the intermittent four years. We struggled away in our training for a month in Mexico's high altitude. We tried to update our technique which had been developed by the competitors of the '56 Olympics and did not match the efficiency of our competition's technique. Our month's training was very rigorous. We had to compensate in four weeks for what our competitors had been doing for four years or more. We entered our first race very nervous but determined. Our results of that first experience with the very best are indicative of where Canadian sports were in 1968. We were disqualified. We broke a rule we did not know of, nor did our coach know of it. Heart-broken, we sat down to figure out why. Within hours of our humiliation, we decided not to allow this situation to remain. We were going to Munich to win a medal and redeem Canada's image and our pride as athletes.
In the next four years Scott and I devoted huge amounts of energy, time and money to our sport. In 1970 we won medals in competition in Hungary and placed seventh in the 1970 World Championships in Copenhagen. Our plan was on schedule. In 1971 we trained in Hungary for three months. In this stint the toll of no coaching and little support began to show. We did not make the finals in the 1971 Belgrade World Championships. We returned to Canada and began to train even harder. In 1972 we had no international races due to lack of support. Scott and I organized Hajba (Tonio) Antal's trip to Canada, but political problems in Hungary and Canada doomed this venture. No competition left Scott and I competitively stale. The fatigue of long hard training, day after day, after week, after year, accumulated to physical and psychological boredom. Our results in Munich were a disaster. Both Scott and I quit the sport scene as competitors with great relief.
Scott married and went to work while I returned to school to finish my undergraduate degree. I began jogging to stay healthy with no thoughts of racing again. At this time there was some rumbling in Ottawa about something called Game Plan to ensure good results in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. During my final exams I began paddling to relieve the boredom of studying. Mac Hickox was now at the club doing some coaching. He convinced me that quitting competition at this date would be missing what could be my best opportunity as an athlete. Two weeks before the 1973 National Team trials I decided to try again for the World Championships which were to be held in Tampere, Finland. My close fifth place finish there was the clincher, I was in gear for Montreal. I even had a coach. Mac and I teamed up in Tampere and we never looked back.
ln January 1976 Mac began as a fulltime coach. We worked very hard together, and although our friendship was often strained we never lost sight of our goal. We applied the spirit instilled in us by Bill Collins, the capacity for hard work taught to us by Gabor Joo and our eight years of experience at the international level to realize the goal we set in Finland in 1973, a medal in Montreal.
During the Montreal Olympics I was scared, nervous, frightened, and terrified. When I woke up on the morning of my Olympic C-1 5cO metre final, a heavy weight came off me, as the day had arrived. All the work was done. There were no further preparations.
Before the race I took a long careful warmup. As I pushed off from the dock to go to the starting line Mac said ``Just do it" and I did. Canadian athletics and Canadian Canoeing has evolved from its ascent stage in 1968 to the advanced level it has attained at present. The results of international competition attest to the maturity of Canada's athletics. Much must still be done to make Canada a truly sports minded nation. With the improvement of government support at all governmental levels great things are now possible in all levels of athletic activity.
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