PARIS — Rower Caileigh Filmer of Victoria was trying to take in the moment, but that took some doing, after the Duncan-based Canadian women’s eight won the silver medal Saturday in the 2024 Olympic Games behind champion Romania.
“I don’t remember a lot of the race. I was seeing stars but just trusted in what [coxswain Kristen Kit] was saying. I knew we had medalled when we crossed the line, but to be honest, I was just hugging my body in fetal position because I was in so much pain,” said Filmer.
“I wasn’t able to celebrate much until we got on the dock. I could see my mom and my dad and my twin sister and others from Victoria in the stands. I have a lot of family and supporters here. It was just so special.”
The Canadians finished with a time of five minutes 58.84 seconds at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, behind gold medallist Romania who finished in five minutes 54.39 seconds.
Canada found itself in a tight battle with Great Britain for second with 500 metres to go, but were able to hold off their rivals to claim silver.
Filmer, Kit, Avalon Wasteneys of Campbell River, Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski and Brentwood College graduate Sydney Payne eventually stood on the dock at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium and were able to let the moment sink in. Those crew members of the Canadian women’s eight, which trains on Quamichan Lake in North Cowichan, won their second career Olympic medals.
Wasteneys, Payne, Gruchalla-Wesierski and Kit returned in Paris from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics gold-medallist eights crew. Filmer, bronze medallist at the Tokyo Olympics in the pairs event, was added to the eights crew for Paris along with newcomers Kristina Walker and Jessica Sevick, both of Victoria, Maya Meschkuleit from Yale of the Ivy League and 2023 Santiago Pan Am Games gold medallist Abby Dent.
“It’s a completely different journey than Tokyo but equally as satisfying,” said Wasteneys, a graduate of Carihi Secondary.
“We had to dig really deep for this,” added the former University of Victoria Vikes star rower, referring to the fact Canada had to get to the final through the repechage process, which allows teams that don’t qualify in the early rounds a second chance in another race — the repechage round.
“Every time we are backed into a corner and the pressure is on, we fight back harder. Every race, we stepped it up. I’m just so incredibly proud of this group of women.”
Wasteneys’ mother, Heather Clarke, was an Olympic rower at Seoul in 1988 and aunt, Christine Clarke, at Los Angeles in 1984.
“To see my family and my partner in the stands supporting me was an incredibly wonderful feeling” after no fans being allowed at the pandemic-affected Tokyo Olympics, she said.
“My mom has been really great about supporting me but giving me my space but believing in me when I need it. She has let me forge my own path.”
Filmer’s mom, Helena, was also a rower, on the national team and at UVic, where the younger Filmer rowed, too, after graduating from Mount Douglas Secondary. After winning bronze at Tokyo, Caileigh Filmer attempted to make the Paris Olympics as a cyclist. What didn’t work out on the road certainly did back on the water.
“Cycling was a lofty goal and I didn’t achieve it,” she said. “When I didn’t qualify for the Olympics in the individual time trial, that’s when I took all of my hard training on the road and put it back into rowing. It’s something I didn’t know I wanted. Now that I’m here, I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”
Payne added to Brentwood College’s lengthy Olympic rowing tradition.
“I was working hard not to compare it too much to last time in Tokyo. It compares in that we left no regrets out there both times,” Payne said.
The team also went the repechage route at the Tokyo Games. “We put ourselves in corners but fight through it,” Payne said. “It’s never our race plan to do that but it adds fuel.”
Meanwhile, two full four-year Brentwood College grads won Olympic medals Saturday with Payne scoring women’s eights silver with Canada and Rielly Milne men’s eights bronze with the U.S. to add to the Island school’s long list of Olympic rowing medallists.
“Brentwood knows how to foster the love of sport and passion for it,” Payne said of her alma mater.
Milne, from Woodinville, Washington, had to miss his 10-year Brentwood College reunion this year because he was training for the Olympics.
“There’s such a big history of rowing at Brentwood. It feels good to add my name to the list. It’ll sink in.”
GAMES NOTES: The women’s eights silver added to the Island-associated medal total at the Paris Olympics, joining the silver medal won by the Langford-based Canadian women’s rugby sevens team … World champion hammer-thrower Ethan Katzberg of Nanaimo goes for Olympic gold Sunday at 11:30 a.m. PT at the Stade de France … The bronze medal at Paris in the 200-metre butterfly by Ilya Kharun, who was born in Montreal but raised in Las Vegas where his parents are show acrobats, was the first in the Olympics by a Canadian male swimmer since Ryan Cochrane of Victoria won 1,500-metre freestyle silver at London in 2012. (Incorrect information appeared in Saturday’s edition concerning the latter item.)
— With a file from The Canadian Press
