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For Canada’s national sport organizations (NSOs) like Rowing Canada and Rugby Canada, finding up-and-coming Olympians has been made easier thanks to RBC Training Ground’s talent identification and athlete funding program.
Launched in 2016, RBC Training Ground holds free qualifying events across the country where athletes aged 14 to 25 can showcase their athletic abilities in front of Canada’s high-performance sport representatives.
Kristy Martin Hale, co-ordinator of Women’s High Performance for Rugby Canada, says the organization is always succession planning, especially after an Olympic Games when athletes naturally retire or move on from the sport. “RBC Training Ground has been a great avenue for us to find crossover athletes, which is a key area we’ve leveraged, as well as identifying athletes in more remote regions of the country,” Martin Hale said.
She notes that Rugby Canada is specifically looking for athletes with speed, power and strength, focusing primarily on the speed and jump stations at events, while also looking for an “X factor.” “The testing data is really important for us, but we also have the opportunity to watch the athletes navigate that high-performance testing environment at the events, where we can look for character and personality traits that will make them good for team sports,” Martin Hale explained.
Athletes that exude confidence, recognize opportunities to engage with coaching staff, and are keen to ask questions, often catch the eye of Rugby Canada representatives. The organization has discovered two promising new rugby players in recent years through RBC Training Ground events - Fancy Bermudez and Krissy Scurfield. Bermudez attended an RBC Training Ground event five years ago and has been excelling in Rugby Canada’s program ever since. She is now a part of the senior training team and is aiming for a spot on Canada’s Olympic team for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Scurfield was named an RBC ‘Future Olympian’ – the name given to top athletes funded through the program – last year and was selected by Rugby Canada to attend its 2021-2022 Maple Leaf Academy, the organization’s development program. Martin Hale recalled, “[Scurfield’s] speed and power really stood out at the RBC Training Ground events. This has really fast-tracked her progression. Being able to train five days a week alongside the Maple Leaf athletes and senior program athletes, she’s moving quicker into senior selection than would have been possible otherwise.”
Laurence Cote, NextGen athlete recruitment coordinator with Rowing Canada, says RBC Training Ground events allow NSOs to zero in quickly on potential athletes best suited for their particular sport. “We understand that athletes who go to these events are looking to be an Olympian, they’re looking to be successful. We understand that they’re looking for their best potential sport – it could be cycling or rowing, it could be rugby. We don’t want to pull them from a sport they’d be better suited for, so we really have straightforward conversations with them,” said Cote.
Rowing Canada specifically looks at an athlete’s overall fitness in the qualifying events, as well as their height. Where they’re located geographically in relation to suitable rowing clubs is also a factor. “Great rowers tend to be very tall with a long arm span. Rowing is a sport of levers, so to have an extra couple centimetres is helpful,” Cote explained.
At the RBC Training Ground National Final, there is an arm/leg test that Rowing Canada places a great deal of importance on. The arm/leg test progresses by levels from easy to difficult as RPMs are increased. “It eventually becomes very, very difficult, so it tests their aerobic fitness and mental strength. You can see how the athlete will deal with the pain, because rowing is very intense and being able to relax into it is important,” said Cote.
One hundred athletes will be selected from the qualifiers – either the in-person qualifying events or the program’s at-home testing program – to compete in the RBC Training Ground National Final, which takes place in the fall. From this final event, up to 30 athletes will be named RBC Future Olympians, receiving funding and support to pursue their Olympic dreams. The program’s success was evident at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Beijing 2022 Olympics with seven RBC Training Ground alumni winning Olympic medals for Canada.
With the COVID-19 pandemic having negatively impacted training time and opportunities for athlete development, NSOs are hungry to find up-and-coming athletes at this year’s RBC Training Ground events. “We’ve had a massive deficit in talent ID because of program disruptions. Coming out of COVID and having a loss of talent ID for the past two years, RBC has some added weight and importance for us,” Martin Hale said of the 2022 RBC Training Ground events.
