07 Dec 2011
Canadian generosity helps South African rowers
This clothes donation was organised by sports writer Lisa Lynam when she found out that there was a scarcity of rowing clothes amongst some of the young, up-and-coming South African rowers. Knowing that Canadian national team athletes were generously kitted out, Lynam decided to ask some of her country’s top rowers to donate.
The idea of donating clothes came to Lynam after meeting South African coach Roger Barrow. “I learned about some of his country’s unique challenges and programmes including an indoor rowing outreach programme to poverty-stricken rural village schools which helped to identify potential talent,” says Lynam. “When I learned that these youths had little in the way of rowing gear I asked for donations from some of my recently retired Canadian rowing Olympian friends. Before I knew it, I had a living room full of gear to send to South Africa.”
Top Canadian rowers like Olympic bronze medallists in the lightweight men’s four, Jon Beare and Ian Brambell donated rowing workout clothes along with others.
Lynam then persuaded Canadian men’s head coach, Mike Spracklen to fill a Canadian Olympic team bag with gear when he went on a recent trip to South Africa. Spracklen, coach of the Canadian Olympic Champion men’s eight, was the keynote speaker at this year’s South African rowing coaches conference. His bags were unusually heavy with the weight of extra clothes as he left for the conference.
Olympic rower from South Africa, Shaun Keeling handed out the clothes to the rowers and Barrow describes, “You could see from the smiles on these kids faces, they were so happy.”
“Now that the youth who are rowing at the Academy and those learning to row in the rural schools have a bunch of Canadian gear, I am reminded how we are all connected in this global rowing village,” says Lynam.
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