(Aug. 31, 2013) Canada won its second medal - another silver - on Saturday at the 2013 World Rowing Championships in Chungju, Korea.
The women's quadruple sculls boat of Antje Seydlitz-Kurzbach (Smithers, BC), Carling Zeeman (Cambridge, ON), Kate Goodfellow (Perth, ON) and Emily Cameron (Summerside, PEI) crossed the line in 6:45.02.
"Winning our heat and going straight through to the final, we realized had a really good shot at a medal," explained Cameron, who won her first World Championship medal today. "We had five days off to train and practice, and we just stayed focused and we knew that when push came to shove we could have been first or second."
Germany won gold in 6:41.86, followed by Canada and Poland picking up bronze in 6:46.27. The Netherlands (6:49.05), the U.S. (6:50.79) and Italy (6:53.46) missed out on the medals.
"We stuck to our race plan," said Goodfellow. "We knew we had contact with Germany early on, but in the end they were just too quick."
Carling Zeeman was a late-season addition to this boat. "It's a great feeling," said Zeeman, who also won silver in the single at the World Under 23 Championships earlier this summer. "It's been an eventful summer and I can't think of a better way to top it off - a great race, great crew and I had a lot of fun throughout the whole process. I'm excited for what's to come!"
The quad is one of five Olympic events for heavyweight women, and Canada has not medaled in this event at the World level since the 1990s.
"It was a superb effort by the women in the quad," said Rowing Canada Aviron High Performance Director, Peter Cookson. "We have been building our women's sculling program for a while and it's very satisfying to see the women embrace it and come home with some hardware."
Earlier this afternoon, the Canadian men's quad finished sixth in its B final, or 12th overall. Italy won the B final to place 7th in 6:08.49. Canada crossed the 2000-metre mark in 6:22.67.
This crew is Matt Buie (Duntroon, ON), Kevin Kowalyk (Winnipeg, MB), David Wakulich (St. Catharines, ON) and Mike Braithwaite (Duncan, BC).
Yesterday the women's four also took silver. Tomorrow is Canada's final chance at another medal - in the women's eight - as the 2013 World regatta wraps up Sunday afternoon.