TROUBLED WATERS

Women's eight crew saved Rowing Canada from hitting bottom, but it's a long way to the surface

- DAVE FESCHUK

On the morning of the Olympic final in Paris a couple of weeks ago, Kristen Kit, the coxswain for Canada's women's rowing eight, stood in front of a mirror and paused for a moment of pre-race self-reflection.

"I said to myself, 'Did I make a big mistake?" "Kit said.

The reason for the question was complicated. Kit and her crewmates in the women's eight were preparing to defend a gold medal won in Tokyo three years earlier. But even Kit, who helmed that championship boat in Tokyo, didn't consider her eight to be particular favourites to climb the podium.

"Before the race I was thinking, 'We haven't had the last three years I'd hoped for. We could come last today,' "Kit said.

They didn't come last, of course. Thanks to a gutsy performance from an underdog crew, Canada finished second to claim the country's only rowing medal in Paris. But you'll understand Kit's pre-race doubts. The three years leading up to Paris have been a time of turmoil at Rowing Canada, which saw its CEO resign earlier this year in the wake of a 2022 report that called out a "toxic" culture within the organization.

Kit, a four-time Olympian, called the report "accurate," but said that, for those on the inside, the laundry list of dysfunction chronicled in its pages wasn't exactly breaking news. That Canada qualified a measly two boats for the Paris Olympics-after receiving a whopping $11.6 million in Own the Podium funding for the quadrennial, third only behind far more successful programs in athletics and swimming only underlined the scope of the mess.

What's worse: It's not like nobody saw this coming. Canada won one medal at the 2016 Rio Games and two in Tokyo.

"It was messy before Tokyo," Kit said. "In my own career, there always seems to be chaos in the organization."