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Rowland earns second chance at national gold
Tuesday August 5 2008 A year ago, Brooke Rowland entered the Royal Canadian Legion National Championship for track and field as a decided underdog.
The fact that she was, at age 13, the youngest competitor in the under 15 class was a feat in itself. On top of that, Rowland managed to bring home a pair of silver medals from the meet.  
But this year silver isn’t on her mind.
“I went there seeded second [in both events] and the people that were seeded first were way ahead of me,” Rowland says. “In both events I knew I wasn’t going to win it. So I went there with the wrong mentality.
“I ended up coming second, but it still wasn’t the best I could have done. I want to do better this time.”
Rowland, 14, will enter the high jump and javelin competitions at the meet, which begins Friday in Sherbrooke, Que., as the top seed in both events. Rowland is a member of the Orangeville Track Club.
“She will definitely be the favourite to win gold,” Orangeville Track Club coach Patrick Russell says. “And she still has a year to go in this age group.”
Rowland qualified for the nationals by winning gold in both high jump and javelin at the provincial championships in Kitchener in late July. Only 36 athletes from Ontario qualified for the nationals.
Rowland, who will enter Grade 9 at Westside secondary school in the fall, still hasn’t been in the sport for two full years. But she has enjoyed immediate success and isn’t slowing down. Rowland broke her own provincial age group record in javelin with a throw of 38.76 metres at the provincial meet. Her personal best in high jump is 1.63 metres, a mark that Russell believes will be surpassed quickly.
“Brooke has made so much progress this year,” Russell says. “She’s grown four inches, and I fully expect her to jump 1.70 [metres] very, very soon.”
Beginning in the fall, Rowland will be training for seven different events in order to compete in the heptathlon once she enters the under 17 division. Along with the two events she currently competes in, Rowland will train for shot put, long jump, 80 metre hurdles, and 200 and 800 metre runs.
“I’m not the fastest person, so I really have to work on my sprinting,” she admits.
That training was supposed to start last winter, but an upper hamstring tear suffered while playing in a basketball tournament sidelined Rowland for two months. Still, Russell is confident that she’ll be a fast learner.
“It’s been very good so far [with high jump and javelin], so I don’t anticipate any difficulties,” Russell says.
Rowland also plays AAA basketball in Guelph, where she helped her team to a silver medal and made the all-star team at the Eastern Canadian championships this year.
She admits that juggling sports with school is challenging, but is focussed on earning an NCAA scholarship after high school. She’s just not sure for which sport.
“One day there will have to be a decision to go one way or the other,” Brooke’s dad, Tim Rowland, says. “For now she’ll still be able to do both sports.”
And do them at an extremely high level. Although many future Olympians have come through the legion program, Russell is hesitant when asked about Rowland’s long-term potential.
“She’s still so young, so we don’t want to set the expectations too high,” he says. “She’s definitely quite the talent.”

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