Coaster Sarah Doherty has golden dreams as she prepares for the 2008 World Sprint Races in Sacramento, Calif. this week.
The event is a landmark in canoe racing as it will be the first time adaptive competitors will be recognized with full medal status.
Adaptive racers will be classified by a score of one to five points categorized by the impact of a disability upon an athlete's capacity to paddle the canoe. The point system evens out the playing field and opens the sport to a full range of people with disabilities on a competitive level. This is also done in every Paralympic event.
Several years ago, Din Ruttelynck (visually impaired) and Doherty (amputee) were asked to represent Canada in the disabled exhibition races held in New Zealand at the 2006 World Sprint Races.
Many Sunshine Coast community associations and local governments sponsored the women as the only Canadian representatives in the adaptive races. The women joined an Italian team at the World event, but Canada was counted as a country developing this sport for adaptive individuals. The adaptive competition in New Zealand (as well as the adaptive demonstration in Hawaii in 2004) supported the evolutionary process to advance adaptive paddling to full medal status. It was also a landmark for the bid to have this sport included as part of the 2012 Paralympic Games. Canada will not send an adaptive team to the World Sprint races this year. However, Doherty (who has joint Canadian/U.S. citizenship) was asked to join the northern California canoe team.
"My initial reaction was no," Doherty said. "I hadn't been training and wasn't confident to race at a world level."
But coach Cheance Adair convinced her to join their team in June, and she has been training ever since.
"I spent two weeks in Boston with my 84-year-old dad who works out six days a week at his local recreation centre. It was a lot of fun to try to keep up with him," she said. "We are both very competitive and swimming for a solid hour every day really pushed me."
Doherty lost her leg in 1973 and began adaptive skiing as part of her rehabilitation. She participated in the sport as it went through the same evolutionary process. She was on the U.S. disabled ski team when it took part in the Calgary Olympics as a demonstration prior to Paralympian status.
Ed Hill of the Gibsons Paddle Club will be making the famous devil's club necklaces (a Sechelt Nation tradition to confer strength and safety to the wearer) for Doherty's team to wear while they are racing. The necklaces are thought to bring good luck to those who wear them and were also given to the Italian team in 2006.
"It's an honour to take part in adaptive outrigger canoe paddling history, and I'm sure my devil's club necklace will continue to bring me good luck," she said.
For more information about the event or to follow the races, check out www.ivf2008usa.info.
