Canada’s First World Championship Crew Inducted into Row Ontario Hall of Fame
The first Canadian crew to ever win a gold medal at the World Rowing Championships were honoured on Thursday as members of the 1985 World Champion quad were inducted into the Row Ontario Hall of Fame.
Crew members Paul Douma, Doug Hamilton, Mel LaForme, and Robert Mills earned the first rowing gold medal at a World Championships for Canada on the Hazewinkel Course in Heindonk, Willebroek, Belgium in the summer of 1985. The group lived in St. Catharines trained out of the Ridley Graduate Boat Club on Martindale Pond under the expert guidance of fellow 2021 HOF inductee Jack Nicholson and assisted by Nancy Storrs.
The crew was formed in the spring of 1985 at the Speed Order Competition in Welland. St. Catharines native Douma was the newcomer to the group, and quickly showed he belonged in subsequent training sessions as a fierce competitor with no quit in him. Hamilton, LaForme and Mills had all been members of the national team in prior years and all of them had already competed at an Olympics. LaForme, from Hamilton, Ont., was the most experienced member of the group and had been a national team member since 1976. He competed in the eight at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and had already won three Pan Am Games medals by that point in his career. Hamilton, also from St. Catharines, had been sculling with considerable success through the early-1980’s while also attending to educational pursuits at Queen’s University and at the London School of Economics. He had also bowed the Olympic quad to a bronze medal at 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Mills, who hailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, was also a 1984 Olympian and bronze medalist, finishing third in the men’s single sculls.
The crew came together quickly and began showcasing their speed in training sessions with the Canadian national team men’s eight. Their first taste of competition came at an annual regatta in Lake Lucerne, where they were narrowly defeated by the East Germans in a race that featured all the Eastern Bloc countries. In preparation for the 1985 World Championships, Nicholson focused the crew’s training sessions on a ‘No Fade’ mentality, in which he wanted the crew to have even splits for all four quarters of the race with some potential for extra gas in the tank in the final 250m.
In the first race at the World Championships, the quad won their heat handily while executing the race plan for the regatta. The semi-final was closer but also resulted in a victory for the Canadians. The stage was set for the final with boats from France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Italy, and East Germany, who had won the other semi-final. By the 500-metre mark Canada had a slight lead followed closely by the Czechs and East Germans. At 1000m, it was a three-boat race with the Czechs surprisingly maintaining a very slight lead over Canada and the East Germans a second down on Canada. With 500m to go, Canada had moved into a slight lead while the Czechs and East Germans were hanging tough less than a second back. By the 250m mark the Czechs had faded and the anticipated contest between the two top boats was on. There was no fade in the Canadian boat and the East Germans ran out of water. Victory for Canada – the first ever in World Rowing Championship competition.
The same crew would go on to have success at future events as well, winning a bronze medal at both the 1986 and 1987 World Rowing Championships, as well as a victory at the 1987 Royal Henley Regatta over the Russian national quad, who had won the 1986 World Championships.
Row Ontario has announced the inductions of the 2021 Hall of Fame class since Monday as part of ‘Hall of Fame Week’. Inductees announced so far this week include Wes Kuran (Umpire), Jack Nicholson (Coach), Joe Lyttle (Builder) and Lou Scholes (Athlete-Heritage). Stay tuned the rest of this week for more announcements on the 2021 Row Ontario Hall of Fame induction class.
Visit Row Ontario Hall of Fame for more information.
