It was three races and three medal performances for Airdrie’s Olivia McMurray at the Western Canada Summer Games in Kamloops, B.C. last week.
The rower earned a silver in the women’s coxless pairs, bronze in the women’s coxless quads and bronze in the women’s final 8+ races.
McMurray said she was thrilled with her results, especially since she only took up the sport about a year ago.
“It gives me so much more confidence because when you’re new to a sport you really have nothing to base your ability on, so you don’t know how good you are really,” she said.
“But when you start doing well at competitions, then you actually start feeling like you’re good at it.”
Going into the WCSG, McMurray and her coaches knew that she had her best chance to medal in the pairs with partner Karen Guran of Calgary.
She said it is her strongest race.
“We definitely felt the most confident with that event, because we had done well at past regattas with that boat,” McMurray said.
“We were so happy with the pairs, as we were within a second of the gold medal. It was such a close race and we were fine with getting second because B.C. swept all of the events except one. Coming that close to first was amazing.
“With the two bronzes, the races were so tough because of rough water, so were happy to get third. The coaches were really happy with how we did, especially in the pairs. They had so much confidence in us.”
McMurray will return to rowing at the University of Calgary this fall, with hopes of her next major competition being the 2013 Canada Summer Games.
“You’re supposed to do the Western Canada Games, then, in two years, move on to the Canada Games,” she said.
“The next one is in 2013 in Quebec. So that will definitely be the next step. Other than that, I’ll keep going with university rowing.”
She also has a long-term dream of competing at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, although she is aware of the amount of work needed to get to that point.
“That would be insanely amazing and that’s kind of my end goal,” McMurray said. “But I think I do have to take it a step at a time.”
