National Team rower Anna-Marie de Zwager of Victoria, B.C. won the Canadian Indoor Rowing Championships (CIRC) Senior Women's event today in Toronto.
"Today was a bit of a surprise," said de Zwager, who was a member of the 2007 women's quad that qualified for next summer's Olympic Games. "I've been so focused on August (the Olympics in Beijing), but I'm very pleased and it's nice to know I'm on track with training." Rowers use the ergometer (rowing machine) as a major part of their off-water training.
De Zwager won this event last year, as well as winning the 2007 Crash-B Sprints in Boston - also known as the World Indoor Rowing Championships.
De Zwager's time today was 6:41.5 - beating her personal best by .1 of a second - and she was followed by fellow National Team rowers, Romina Stefancic of Victoria, B.C. in 6:43.6 and Sabrina Kolker of West Vancouver, B.C. in 6:45.9.
The Senior women's event was a highlight of the 24th Canadian Indoor Rowing Championships at the Rexall Centre at York University.
Other highlights included National Junior team member and World Junior silver medalist (men’s pair) Conlin McCabe of the Brockville Rowing Club winning the Junior A men’s event in 6:09.4, and 77-year-old Alex Wilson of Vineland, Ont., qualifying for the World Indoor Rowing Championships, which he won last year. Seven athletes from the Toronto event had times good enough to qualify for the World Indoors.
Indoor events were also held today in Victoria, Saskatoon, Montreal and Dartmouth.
National Team men and lightweights did not participate in the Canadian Indoors due to out-of-country training camps.