2023 World Rowing Championships - the Canadian Maple Leaf Ceremony - video Dailymotion

World Rowing

The 2023 World Rowing Championships are underway. For the Canadian Rowing Team, this is their lone chance to race with a Maple Leaf on their oars - Carol Love, head coach of the women's eight, explains how special it is for the athletes.

Transcript

00:00 The Maple Leaf Ceremony is really important to our Canadian team.

00:06 It's the only time at the Olympics or World Championships that an athlete is allowed to

00:11 row with a maple leaf on the blade.

00:13 So the rest of the year, we just row with a blade like this and this really demonstrates

00:20 or analogous to we're a country from sea to sea, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.

00:27 And it's only the day before a championship, athletes get to put or given their maple leaf

00:32 and they get to put it on their oar.

00:35 So the ceremony takes place with our friends and our partners and the community where we

00:40 train as a national team.

00:42 And the coach gives the athletes, the crew, each of them their maple leaf and they bring

00:48 that maple leaf to the World Championships.

00:50 And it's the day before the championships that it's the last thing they do, they get

00:54 to put the leaf on their blade.

00:57 And at the end, that blade is taken, the leaf is taken off and you have to win it for another

01:04 year.

01:05 And it's really an honour and it's the coach that hands the maple leaf to their crew and

01:10 then they bring it with them to the World Championships to put on today.

01:16 It's been a tradition a long time, I can't tell you when, but it's just built through

01:22 time and so all the young athletes in the country knows the tradition.

01:28 Oh I think it's the culmination of a year of really hard training when they realize

01:33 they've made it, they've made the crew and it's a big honour.

01:36 [Music]

01:37 [Music]

2023 World Rowing Championships - the Canadian Maple Leaf Ceremony

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