Tanara Oliveira/Contributor
A talented trio of Canadian sailors has achieved a remarkable feat, earning their nominations for the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games.
The team consists of Luke Ramsay from Vancouver (Royal Vancouver Yacht Club), Rachel Green from Burlington, Ont. (Royal Hamilton Yacht Club) and Jessica Hirschbold from Victoria (Royal Victoria Yacht Club).
Ramsay, Green, and Hirschbold won five out of the eight races in the 12-boat competition. This put them in first place overall. They were the best Canadian crew at these trials and they also followed the Pan American Games rule that a crew must have one man and two women.
Representing Victoria, Hirschbold said she started sailing when she was four, but it was at 15 that she really saw she had a passion for the sport.
“Growing up, I was always around boats – from exploring on keelboats to competitively racing in different boats,” Hirschbold said.
The thrill of competing came in 2021, when she qualified to represent Canada at the Youth Worlds in Oman with her sailing partner Grace Poole.
“With the help from our amazing coach Steve McBride, we were able to prepare for the event training in Victoria and even doing some training in Lake Garda, Italy,” she said. “From there, we competed in more events like worlds in Spain in 2022, midwinters in Los Angeles, where we were the top Canadian team, and Canada Games last August, where we earned a gold medal for British Columbia.”
Her expectation for the Pan American Games is to achieve the best possible result for Canada and perhaps bring home a medal. The team was formed at short notice, but Hirschbold said they just “clicked.”
“We are happy to qualify because the team of Luke Ramsay, Rachel Green and myself was newly formed a couple weeks before the competition,” Hirschbold said. “We sailed as a team just a week before, so we didn’t know how we’d compare to the rest of the competition. We quickly had to figure out how to work the boat as it was the first time sailing it for two-thirds of our team and are glad to have clicked as a team. The win at the qualifiers was definitely exciting and the team is thrilled to compete”.
Excitement fills Hirschbold when she thinks about the future.
“In the future, I hope to compete in the 470 class as a mixed team and hopefully qualify for the 2028 Olympics. I will spend the next few years training and competing in this class and hopefully find more opportunities in sailing.”
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