CBC Sports – Player’s Voice – by Laurence Vincent Lapointe.
The battle to get women’s canoe into Olympics turns personal for Canadian Canoeist Laurence Vincent-Lapointe.
In her own words, the first and 10-time Women’s Canoe Sprint World Champion writes:
“It has been my dream that the ICF would agree that our level was high enough to be in the Games and I am incredibly happy that all of the skeptics were proven wrong with the recent announcement in January. The International Canoe Federation has finally approved a program with women’s canoe for the 2020 Games.” [the IOC will vote after Rio].
“They said canoeing is bad for women’s bodies. Canoeing was going to leave us infertile.
Who knows how many of us have given birth while the old-minded thinking and ludicrous excuses kept us out of the Games. And just how fast have we become while they claimed that we weren’t good enough to compete?”
“This is a change that goes beyond the few athletes who will compete in women’s canoe for the first time in 2020. This is a change that will affect every girl who looks up to those female canoers. They’ll realize that they can do it too. Hopefully they will see when they’re told they can’t do something, they just need to want it more.”
#WomensCanoe #1StepCloser #Tokyo2020 #TogethertoTokyo #RoadtoTokyo #WePaddle #AmazingAwaits
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