I created this campaign because:
Our four person sprint kayak (K4) can’t wait to win gold, at home, in front of our family and friends at the 2017 Canadian Summer Games. To do so, we need your support. One of the challenges we face in Manitoba is a short season, which results in a lack of time for preparation on the water. Even when we go south to a four week spring training camp to prepare we still don’t have the time necessary to be at our best. Our plan is to go abroad this February to train at the International Canoe/Kayak Academy in Italy and Poland with coaches Andrzej Switalski and Dorota Kuczkowska. This will ensure that we have optimal training time on the water with excellent coaching and competition prior to the beginning of our Canadian season at the end of May. The extra four months on the water will give us the head start that we would not otherwise have access to.
Our K4 has four unique athletes with different attitudes and attributes which contribute toward the success of our team.
Jordan Smallwood gets us where we need to go; with great dedication and determination he ensures that we’re always focused and doing our best, to be at our best.
Hayden Fellner is as wide as he is tall; he is our team's comedic relief and our little teddy bear who is also as strong as a bull.
Tristan Schneider is the power house of our K4. Sitting in the second position of our K4, Tristan finds many opportunities to goof off, but when it comes time to race, he is all business.
James Lavallee is a junior athlete named to the Canadian National team in 2014. He is outgoing and hardworking which is the reason for his success at the 2014 CKC team trials where he was the fastest 200m Jr athlete in Canada.
During our 6 years of paddling, we have accomplished many things. Some of our most recent accomplishments have been 4x World Champions at the 2012 ICF Dragonboat Worlds. In 2013, we were finalists in many of the events in the Canada Summer games against all odds (given that we were 5 years younger than the competition). This past year in 2014, we competed in the ICF Dragonboat World Championships for a second time and became 9x medallists and World Champions once again!
This $10,000 is going to be split equally amongst the 4 of us to cover expenses such as air fare and accommodations. As this trip will cost more than twice as much as our $10,000 goal, we have all been working hard at home to help raise funds for our training. We've all begun working part time jobs, while going to school and training, to save all the money we possibly can.
Currently our training regiment consists of 9 practices weekly. We paddle for as long as humanly possible from the early days of spring to the late freezing cold days of fall. As soon as we can no longer paddle, we transition into weight training, running, and skiing. In the spring time, we head down to the southern United States to get a head start on our season. This year, we're hoping to be even farther ahead than ever with our trip to Europe.
I will be using the funds for:
When we're overseas we'll be spending our time with a group of 15 male kayakers training in Italy at the training centre in Sabaudia for approximately 2 months. Following that, we will be heading to Warsaw, Poland where we will be moving between the training centre there, and the International Canoe/Kayak Academy outside of the city. Once we've completed our training abroad, we hope to return home so that we can compete at the Junior National Team Trials which determine whether we will represent Canada at the 2015 Junior World Canoe/Kayak Championships in Montemor-O-Velho, Portugal.
Over the next several years, we hope to ramp up to the point where we can win gold medals for our team at home in 2017 at the Canadian Summer Games. These are our upcoming events.
Canadian National Team trials- end of May 2015
Junior World Championships- Portugal, July 2015
National Championships- August 21 2015
Western Canada Summer Games- August 2015
Canada Summer Games- August 2017 (in Winnipeg)
Your supported means:
Your support means the world to us and will help us achieve our goals as well as perform at our best. Thank you for your consideration and we hope that you will believe in us and help our dreams come true.
