Caroline Brunet named top athlete

December 16, 1999
James Christie, Globe and Mail

Toronto -- In a year filled with breakthroughs and accomplishments by Canadian athletes, Caroline Brunet captured the Lou Marsh Award by doing the same old thing -- continuing her reign as the world's best female kayaker.

Brunet, 30, of Lac-Beauport, Que., was named Canada's top athlete of 1999 in a vote by a panel of sports editors and reporters on a committee headed by former Canadian Football League commissioner Jake Gaudaur. The award is named for a former sports editor of the Toronto Star.

Brunet swept the women's world kayak championships in Milan in August, with golds in the three singles races -- 200, 500 and 1,000 metres -- and added a tandem silver with partner Karen Furneaux of Waverly, N.S. She had won a pair of golds in 1998 and three golds in 1997, a domination unprecedented for a Canadian female athlete.

The lone Quebec athlete on the list of 18 Canadian nominees -- men and women, pros and amateurs -- Brunet beat out some athletes with impressive credentials and human-interest stories. Emma Robinson of Winnipeg was undefeated in world rowing this season and repeated as pairs world champion after surgery and chemotherapy in the spring to get rid of a cancerous thyroid gland. Robinson also won a world-championship bronze and a Pan American Games gold with a new partner, Theresa Luke, stepping in for injured Alison Korn.

Larry Walker of Maple Ridge, B.C., won his second consecutive National League batting title with the Colorado Rockies. Walker hit .379, the highest NL average for a full season since 1935. In golf, Mike Weir of Bright's Grove, Ont., set an earnings record for a Canadian male and finished 23rd overall on the PGA Tour with more than $1.5-million. He won the Air Canada Championship in Surrey, B.C.

Among other finalists, Lori Bowden of Victoria won the women's title at the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. Joe Nieuwendyk of the Dallas Stars won the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable Stanley Cup player. Tennis star Sebastien Lareau won the ATP doubles world champion with U.S. partner Alex O'Brien.

Brunet was in Florida yesterday when the vote took place.

She is already into two-a-day training sessions in preparation for the Olympic season.

"I'm very, very happy for this," Brunet said. "It is a great honour. I really appreciate it."

She treasures the prospect of capping her eight world golds with an Olympic gold. Her Sydney Olympic quest will be her fourth Games.

"I would see in it all the hard work of 18 years of my life," she said.

Last season's dominance was important for Brunet.

"I thought a lot about winning three gold again and I was really determined," she said when she won at Milan. She beat Josefa Idem of Germany and Olympic champion Rita Koban of Hungary in both the 500 and 200. Overcoming Koban was the breakthrough she was seeking. Koban won the 1996 Atlanta Olympic gold in front of Brunet, but didn't come to the 1997 and 1998 worlds. She'd loomed as the big unknown in Brunet's record.

"I wanted to win badly and that was probably the key for me."

The canoe and kayak world championships are the only opportunity to qualify for the Olympics. Canada will race in seven events in Sydney next year after finishing in the top 12 in those events, and Brunet had a share in more than half those berths. Canada ranks fourth in the world on the strength of Brunet's and Furneaux's performances.

"I feel that somehow I've been recognized a lot more than I had expected or hoped for when I started paddling," she modestly suggested.

Brunet trained on Lake Bouchette in Quebec until it got too cold. After one more week in Florida, she goes to Denmark to meet with coach Christian Frederiksen, then to Norway, where she will spend Christmas with her boyfriend, who lives there.

In mid-January she'll move her training base to San Diego for a few weeks, returning to Florida in February to make final preparations for European competitions that begin in May in Belgium.

Among other nominees: Mountain biker Alison Sydor of North Vancouver, B.C., won her third World Cup crown; swimmer Joanne Malar of Hamilton was ranked No. 1 in the world in the 200-metre individual medley and No. 2 in the 400-metre individual medley; Lorie Kane of Charlottetown set a record in money won by a Canadian on the LPGA Tour ($757,844) and was fifth in earnings; Al MacInnis of the National Hockey League's St. Louis Blues (winner of the Norris Trophy for best defenceman); high jumper Mark Boswell of Brampton, Ont., (silver medalist at the world championships); Steve Nash of the National Basketball Association Dallas Mavericks, who helped Canada qualify in basketball for its first Olympics since 1988; Texas Ranger relief pitcher Jeff Zimmerman, runner-up in American League rookie-of-the-year voting; and Oakland A's power hitter Matt Stairs.