Monday, 06 April 2009 04:03

Marissa was honored Sunday, April 5th/09 with a much apreciated Endowment Fund Award by the Calgary Booster Club . The award has a monetary value and helps cover some of her training costs. The award was given out to her and fellow athletes Haley and Jessica, as well as other athletes from a variety of sports.

"On behalf of the directors of the Calgary Booster Club, congratulations, once again on being chosen as one of the recipients of

2009 Sportsman of the Year Endowment Grant. We hope that our financial contribution will help you achieve your training and competitive goals in the coming year."

All the athletes were introduced as were all the prominent members of The Calgary Booster Club. Everyone mingled and enjoyed the ceremonies that took place.

Friday, 20 March 2009 14:19

Training is underway in Chilliwack, marking the begining of a new Canadian white water kayakng season. It begins with a competition which sees some of Canada's finest kayakers going head to head.  This will be an important gauge for the whitewater ahtletes, helping them adjust their training plans for more important races later in the season. Many of these competitors have been traing throughout the winter out of country to build momentum for their native season.  Ths will be another great year for the sport of whitewater kayaking in Canada.

Marrisa just completed an extensive one month training camp in Mexico. Amongst a setting of lush tropical jungle, and exotic water, Marissa trained hard with other athletes from around the world.  Some days were set aside for sight seeing such as Mayan ruins and tropical beaches, however, most of the time their was spent on rigorous training.

Kayak Gurl congratulates fellow Canadian kayaker David Ford with his 6th place finish at the Olympic Games in Beijing. David has been a solid performer over the years, always ranking near the top 20. He was interviewed after his excellent finish and mentioned how certain Canadian athletes, especially in the summer sport of whitewater kayaking, don't receive the funding that their international competitors do. Many other countries place a higher value on amateur sport than our Canadian government and their corporate partners do. It is most often funding that can mean the difference between a podium finish or not.

It is troubling that Ford lost his funding this year from the Canadian Olympic Committee's Road to Excellence program. Ford was given three reasons for the funding cut - he was too old, his performances over the past two years weren't good enough and his sport wasn't culturally significant enough in Canada. A case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. You will never hear this kind of logic applied to sports like hockey or curling in Canada. This needs to be changed. When an athlete like Ford can come so close to the podium on his own, excuses like "he isn't good enough" don't add up. How do we grow a sport like kayaking when our own government won't help out. Added to impediments such as the above, our country only sends one male athlete and one female athlete to represent Canada in whitewater kayaking. Compare that to cross country skiing or downhill skiing. The disparity is obvious. That is about to change as many of us are working to fix this.

Again congratulations to you David. It is sad that our government let you down with lack of funding, but you made the most out of things.  It would have been interesting to see if proper funding and support in our sport would have given Canada their first medal at the summer games.  My opinion is that it would have.