For those of you who don’t know, the Pan American Games are the world’s third largest international multi-sport games and they take place in the year preceding the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Every four years, thousands of athletes from the nations of the Americas participate in a variety of different competitions. This will be the third time the Pan Am games have been hosted in Canada and starting July 11, Niagara will help in hosting the Rowing, Canoeing and Kayak Sprint competitions.
Running July 11 – 15, the Royal Canadian Henley Rowing Course in St. Catharines will be showing off a number of 2,000 metre battles of speed, power, endurance and synchronization. Rowing is a very taxing sport that demands athletes use all their muscle groups, especially their legs, trunk and arms. In 2011, four countries, including Canada, went home with 8 or more medals. Hopefully this year we can hit double digits!
Between July 11 – 14, paddlers of the Canoe and Kayak Sprint events will go through one of the most intense and gruelling sports at the Welland Flatwater Centre. The difference between the two comes down to the position in which they paddle. Canoe racers take a kneeling position while Kayakers paddle from a seated position. Adam van Koeverden holds four Olympic medals and eight world championships to his name and will definitely be someone to keep an eye open for. To know how fast these athletes can operate, a four person kayak is able to reach speeds fast enough to pull a water skier!
The Niagara Region is incredibly lucky to host such an incredible international event, so make sure to check out some of the events and cheer on our Canadian athletes! To see what can be expected, check out our video below of the Canoe Sprint World Championship from 2013:
Here are the schedules for the Rowing and Canoe/Kayak competitions.
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