Olympic Hopes 2024 - written by Justin Boyko

This past month I earned the opportunity to race in Szeged, Hungary at a world renowned race course and paddling city. This was my 3rd international competition representing Team Canada, and was my best performance so far, making the A Final in both C1 and C4, and finishing high up in the B Final in my C2. Our C4 Final was only the 4th time our crew had been together in the boat, and thankfully we really clicked together finishing 5th, the boat consisted of Baer Robertson (Wascana), Liam Macdonald (Senobe), and Alec Macaulay (Cheema). However, the highlight of the event was the amount of new people I met and talked with, I played games with the Polish, and Czech athletes. We even went bowling with some Brazilian athletes, where we had to communicate through google translate the whole time. I met many more people from around the world which was such an amazing experience, was very interesting to see how similar we were to each other. It was an incredible experience and made me so excited, and motivated to race again, hopefully internationally next season.