Zaffia Laplante is one of the winners of the Jack Burrows Memorial Sports Achievement Award. PHOTO SUBMITTED.
A trio of athletes will share the Jack Burrows Memorial Sports Achievement award.
The three are canoer Zaffia Laplante, waterskier Jaimee Bull and kayaker Davis Evans.
Zaffia Laplante is a co-recipient of this year’s Jack Burrows Memorial Award for Sports Achievement of the Year. Laplante, a Grade 12 honour student at Ecole Secondaire Algonquin, is a multi-sport athlete whose greatest sporting achievements have come on the water as a paddler as a member of the North Bay and Mississauga Canoe Clubs.
To date she has won 7 Provincial championships in both kayak and canoe events and has established two provincial records that still stand to this day. On the National scene she has won 9 medals at Canoe Kayak Canada’s National Championship including 4 Gold. Laplante has struck gold in the women’s C2 and C4 events. As a 15 year old, she competed for the Mississauga Canoe Club and in the 1,000 meter C2 event, she and her partner Katie Vincent posted a U18 world’s best time of 4:45:072 to win the Tamas Buday Trophy. In Sept 2013, Laplante won two gold medals and set a national record at the Canoe Kayak Canada’s 2013 National Championships in Montreal in the C2-1000m event.
Laplante, who has been a member of the Mississauga Canoe Club since 2011, had a break out year and as a result was named to the Canoe Kayak National Development Team for the 2014–2015 season.
In June 2014 she was named to Canada’s U17 National Women’s Canoe Team and in July 2014 as part of the Team Canada Crew, picked up a pair of silver medals in the C2 and C4 events at the Lake Placid International Regatta in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Throughout the next season Zaffia’s sights are set on competing at the 2015 World Championships and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Laplante will receive her award at the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame annual Induction and Awards dinner on Saturday, May 2nd at the Best Western North Bay.
Jaimee Bull shares award
Jaimee Bull has been named a co-recipient of the Jack Burrows Memorial award for outstanding sports achievement for 2014.
Jaimee filled her developing athletic years with numerous sports including mountain biking, downhill skiing, cross-country running, track and field, basketball, but most importantly, waterskiing.
Jaimee Bull is an outstanding water skier. She put on her first pair of water skis at the age of two. The mini-skis were held apart by a steel bar with the ski rope attached to the tip of the skis and another length of rope outstretched from there for her dad to pull. He would run in the shallow water as Mom supported Jaimee by holding onto her life jacket. That was just the beginning!
Her first competition came in 2006, when, at the age of six, she was with the family attending a competition for her brother and she was asked to help round out the 10 and under competition list. She placed third.
In 2008 and 2009 she competed in the girl’s 1 division at the Canadian National Waterski Championships and placed 3rd the first year and 1st the second year. For the next three (3) years, she entered the girl’s 2 division (12 and under) at the Canadian National Championships and placed 1st in 2010, 2nd in 2011, and 1st again in 2012. At the 2012 event she set a national record of 2 buoys completed with a 12-metre towline. This same year, at back-to-back tournaments at Canada’s Capital Slalom Challenge Waterski Event, she won all five rounds of both tournaments.
At the Eastern Canadian Waterski Championships and the Canadian National Championships the following year, 2013, she was 1st at both events in the girl’s 3 division. During this same season she set seven (7) pending Canadian Slalom Records. Her first approved record was completing 5 buoys with a 12-metre line. As a member of Canada’s U13 CanAm Team, she broke that record winning completing 1 buoy with a 11.25-metre line. To appreciate the magnitude of all of her records, it is important to know that the distance from the boat to the buoy is just less than 11.25 metres, meaning the ski rope barely reaches the buoy.
The shortened rope requires an increasing lean of a fully outstretched body into the turn to make it around each buoy.
While the lake was frozen in the early months of 2014, Jaimee extended her skiing triumphs to Alpine Skiing. She skied to three (3) gold medal results at the Dual City Slalom Northern Ontario Alpine Division Under-14 category in January and, the following month, she came 1st in the U14 Slalom and Giant Slalom at the Timmins Boreal Cup.
With the arrival of the summer weather, Jaimee moved up an age division to junior girls (17 and under). She posted the top score in that age class of 4.5 buoys at a 12-metre line length at the Champions International Tournament. In the Swiss Spring Classic Tournament, she scored one buoy at the 11.25-metre line, giving her the best performance of the day in her age category. She posted a 1st place result at the lCQ Sunset Cup in Orlando Florida setting a new personal best of two (2) buoys at 11.25m which qualified her for the Junior Masters (U18). At the Junior Master’s Tournament in Callaway Gardens, she tied for 4th spot. She is still only 14 years old!
In July of the same year (2014), she won all four (4) tournament rounds in the U17 age category at the Canada Capital slalom Challenge and placed 1st in the same category at Spray Lake in Newmarket. This set up her performance at the Canadian National Waterski Championships where she placed 4th in the open women’s division. At the Ontario Waterski Association Banquet she was named to the Canadian National Development Team and won the Wes Graham Cup. The award is given to the Ontario skier who posts the most consistent scores and shows the most improvement from year to year.
Jaimee is currently ranked 6th in Slalom on the IWSF World Ranking List in the junior women’s (U17) age category.
Jaimee will unfortunately not be able to attend the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame Induction and Awards dinner on Saturday, May 2nd to receive her award. Not surprisingly, she will be in Florida training and competing to qualify for the World Junior Masters Championships later in the summ
Sprint kayaker Evans shares award
Davis Evans has been named co-recipient of the Jack Burrows Memorial Award for his achievements in the sport of sprint kayaking. Evans had an extremely successful year in 2014, and as a result has positioned himself for a bright future on the national and international kayaking scene.
Most notably, Evans was a gold and bronze medalist at the Pan American Championships held last October in Mexico City. His gold medal came in the 1000m K-4 and the bronze in the 200m K-2, paddling with athletes from across Canada. As a result of his success in Mexico City, Evans was named to the Senior National Development Team. This status now makes him eligible to compete at higher-level competitions in the coming year.
The passion for canoeing and kayaking is clearly an inherited characteristic. Evans’ grandparents, Terry and Jean Evans, were co-founders of the North Bay Canoe Club. Terry was an international calibre canoeist and wrestler who competed in the 1936 Olympics. Their son Tim, Davis’ father, rose through the national ranks in kayaking and canoeing as a member of the North Bay Club, winning several national championships. Davis is continuing the family tradition of excellence. When asked about his son’s interest in sprint kayaking,
Tim expressed his pride in Davis’ accomplishments so far.
“I am thrilled that Davis has taken up the sport with such dedication and commitment," his father Tim said.
"His results so far really bode well for the future, and Angela and I look forward to supporting him through this journey together. My father would be extremely proud of his grandson, knowing that Davis is following in his footsteps.”
But perhaps Davis’ biggest fan is his grandmother, Jean Evans, co-founder (with husband Terry) of the North Bay Canoe Club back in the late 60’s. Jean still follows Davis with tremendous interest and pride.
Evans’ specialty is the longer 1000 metre events. Accomplished in both singles (K-1) and crew boats (K-2 and K-4), he enjoys the grueling distance.
“Not everyone likes it because it is so hard, but I love the challenge," notes Evans.
Racing such a distance in K-1 would take approximately 3:45, which cannot be accomplished with an all-out sprint. The race must be paced carefully so that the athlete has sufficient energy to reach the finish line. Often a very tactical race, the 1000 metre events are very demanding physically and mentally.
“Each regatta provides me with an opportunity to hone my racing skills and tweak my race plan. If I achieve a personal best time at each regatta, then I am happy,” he said.
Evans is being noticed. Last year, he had the opportunity to race K-4 against the Canadian U19 team at an international event in Lake Placid, and his crew came a close second to the top boat in the nation, much to the surprise of the winning crew. “It was a great experience to paddle in that boat with the older paddlers, I could feel the power right off the line,” Evans said.
Evans is currently training in Florida, looking forward to the upcoming National Team Trials in Gainesville, Georgia, May 2-3. Based on the trials, Canadian Teams will be selected to compete in World Cup events, the Pan American Games in Toronto, and the U23 World Championships in Portugal. According to Evans, his training is progressing really well. “I am currently training with about 20 guys focused on the 1000 metre distance, most of them older than I, but it is so much fun to train with them. Everyone is cooperating and working well together, yet at the same time it is very competitive. My main goal at the trials is to make the 6-person pool of kayakers selected to compete at the U23 World Championships. Ultimately I have a goal toward making the Senior National Team this year.”
As far as his long-range goals are concerned, Evans has his eye on the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. This fall, Evans will be attending Carleton University in the Biomedical Sciences program. And, he hopes to balance his academics with his athletic career. “There are other athletes attending Carleton who also need to spend a lot of time away from campus to train, so I hope to be able to train in Florida again next winter. Carleton is very supportive of high performance athletes.”
When asked about receiving the Jack Burrows Memorial Award, Evans was quick to congratulate his fellow recipients,
“I was really surprised and excited because I know them both personally. I am honoured to be receiving this award with Jaimee and Zaffia. I am disappointed that I will not be there to celebrate their achievements with them.”
