Bullock, Jones named to Canada Games rowing team
What Daniel Bullock thought was unrealistic two years ago has become very much a reality for the Peterborough rower.
Bullock has been named to Ontario’s rowing team for the 2017 Canada Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Kenora, Ont., July 28 to Aug. 13. He is joined on the 14-man men’s crew by his Trent University teammate and national team rower Trevor Jones of Burleigh Falls.
Bullock, 19, a St. Peter’s Secondary School grad, expects to row in a men’s quad and eight. Jones, 19, who has also been named to Canada’s U23 team for world championships, will row a single and double for Ontario. The team will participate in opening ceremonies for the multi-sport event in Winnipeg and then make their way to the rowing venue in Kenora.
The selection process for Team Ontario started almost two years ago when Bullock was invited to a preliminary camp in St. Catharines following the annual Henley Regatta. Bullock admits he thought his chances of making the team were far-fetched.
“I was quite far behind a lot of the other guys and definitely not at the level they were, for sure,” he said.
He was coming off a high school career where he’d experienced modest success and had really only begun to dedicate himself in Grade 12.
“Mostly I started rowing just because of the friendships I had made,” Bullock said. “In Grade 12 I started to realize I was actually getting pretty good at this and had some mild success. I realized maybe this was something for me.”
It was when he arrived at Trent University in the fall of 2015 that his development really began to take shape with the Excalibur rowing team. He found himself in a strong rowing culture with a men’s program that boasted national stream rowers like Jones, Graham Peeters, Andrew Stewart-Jones, Alex Watson and Josh King. There was also a strong coaching staff led by the Lapum family – Jack, Claire, Matt and Sam – Shelley Adair, Jessica Reaume and Carol Love who were all influences.
“There was a lot of improvement made in that two year period,” he said.
Being around high calibre athletes pushed him in training but he says King, in particular, who was not a Row to Podium athlete like Jones, Peeters, Stewart-Jones and Watson, was a real influence.
“He’s done a lot of the hard training on his own,” said Bullock. “He’s been a big role model.”
Strong ergometer times during training this past indoor winter season made Bullock think Team Ontario was possible. He was selected to attend a training camp in Georgia during reading week. He then placed fourth at the Row Ontario Speed Orders in Welland at the end of May. He was among 24 rowers invited to St. Catharines for the past month for seat races vying for one of 14 spots on the men’s team. He learned last week he’d made it.
“It was huge. It was the realization of a lot of hard work. It’s very rewarding being able to be a part of such a high level team,” Bullock said.
Ontario and B.C. are traditionally the strongest rowing programs and Bullock says they’ll go there with gold medal aspirations.
“We have high expectations of ourselves,” he said.
Bullock will return to Trent in the fall for the third year of a fouryear political studies course. He’s also setting further rowing goals.
“My goal next summer is to be on the (national) under-23 team. I don’t know how realistic that is. It depends on how training goes over the next year,” said Bullock.