Oakville resident and Burloak Canoe Club alumni Alanna Bray-Lougheed has qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Along with her teammates, Alanna will be competing in the K-4 500m race.
Alanna has an extensive resume in canoeing, she represented team Ontario in 2013 at the Canadian Summer games where she won four medals. She then joined the Canadian National team in 2015, she then in 2017 reached the A final of the K-2 1000m at her first-ever senior ICF world championships where she finished in sixth place.
Oakville News first reported on Alanna's story back in May 2020 (when the future of the upcoming games were uncertain) but now it's easier to get excited knowing she's qualified.
She started paddling when she was 10 years old when her mom enrolled her in a week-long canoe camp at Burloak Canoe Club. A big reason for this was because Alanna’s mother bought her family a canoe for them to use at their cottage up in Muskoka.
"I think it was a very good way to babysit me in the summer," said Bray-Lougheed. She continued by admitting, "To be honest, I don’t think I enjoyed it too much and I definitely didn’t enjoy the physical aspects of it. But I made so many good friends at the club and just gradually kept with it each summer."
Another big influence in her life was Oakville and Canadian paddling Legend Adam van Koeverden. Growing up, Adam was a big mentor to Alanna as well as a training partner.
Both Alanna and Adam would often be training together when Alanna was very young, and now that Alanna has gotten older the 28-year-old now sees Adam as more of a friend than a mentor at this point in her career - the two of them still paddle and will go on runs together.
The upcoming (and hopeful) 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will obviously be a lot different than past Olympics due to the ongoing pandemic. Alanna gave some good insight into what she has to do in order to prepare for these "COVID Olympics."
“Right now we have been quarantining in a special hotel in Nova Scotia," she said. "We are very fortunate because of the accommodations from the provincial government where we are able to paddle each day which has been very helpful for our team over the past eight months. But once we travel we try to keep our Canoe Kayak Canada bubble tight and limit any additional exposures.”
I then asked her how safe she feels going all the way to Tokyo for the Olympics with the chance of potentially contracting the virus. Her answer? “I'm pretty confident and trust the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the COC (Canadian Olympic Committee) will ensure these games are extremely safe for everyone involved."
She has full confidence: "I do feel 100% safe providing that all countries follow the guidelines implemented by the organization committee.”
From what I was told, it sounds like this year’s Olympics (set to start on July 23, 2021) will be played in a bubble, like the NHL and NBA did this past summer in order to finish off their playoffs. Both leagues were able to accomplish the bubble with success and sports fans nationwide hope the Olympics can do the same.
I, along with all Oakvilleans and Canadians, wish Alanna and her team along with every Canadian competing this year the best of luck in the upcoming Summer Olympic games.