Celebration pays tribute to Canadian performance sailors

September 9, 2021

Celebration MC, Greg Douglas is an Olympian himself

Last Friday, the first ever Canada’s Celebration of Sailing honoured the season for Sailing in Canada with our nation’s high-performance sailors of past, present, and future. The sunset event on the lawn of the Royal Canadian YC also served to support Canada’s performance sailing endeavours.

Stars of the even were seven returning competitors from the Tokyo Olympic who achieved strong showings at that event. Thanks to the unusual nature of the 2020 Olympics including the hurdles caused by a one-year delay, the athletes had some very interesting and often challenging experiences to share with the attendees.

Emcee, Greg Douglas, himself an Olympic Finn sailor for Canada as well as for Barbados, took particular pride in introducing the Rolex Sailor of the Year. His sister, prominent Olympian this year won that award for the second time.

In addition to the current National Team, many past Canadian Olympic sailors were on hand to celebrate the event and share memories including:

Ian Struthers

Felicity Clarke (Rodness)

Greg Douglas

Stuart Bruce

Bernard Luttmer

Chris Cook

Peter Higgins

Paul Henderson

Mike Wolfs

Martha Henderson

Oskar Johanson

Martin ten Hove

John Millen

The event also marked something of a ‘return to normal’ although held with limited attendance, distancing and other COVID restrictions.