Track team pays tribute to ‘ good fighter’
Physically, Daundre Barnaby was everything a coach could have wanted in a runner. He was 6- foot- 1 with a smooth gait, long and lean as you would expect a middle- distance competitor to be.
It was his more innate qualities that distinguished him, though — the type of characteristics that make Olympians who they are: Perseverance, tirelessness and a healthy stubbornness. That is how he came to represent his new country in London, just months after gaining Canadian citizenship in 2012. He was irrepressible.
“He was a really tough competitor. He had a goal in mind and it was to become the best, which I think he could have been,” Peter Eriksson, Canada’s athletics coach, said on Thursday afternoon as the team moved into the athletes’ village at the Pan American Games. “He was coming up and constantly moved up ( in the running world). He was a good fighter and never gave up. And that’s how the team ( as a whole) is like Daundre. Even if he was in fifth or sixth place with 100 metres to go, he was the one in first when they crossed the line. He was a beautiful runner.”
Barnaby, just 25 years old, died on March 27 in St. Kitts. Some of the team had travelled there for a training retreat and Barnaby was swimming in the ocean when he was carried away from shore by a strong current. Teammates were unable to rescue him. He would have race in the 400 metres and the 4x400- metre relay for Canada at the Pan Am Games next week.
He will still be with the team. Although strict rules prevent anything but the manufacturer’s logo and a country’s insignia from being on team uniforms, the Canadian team will honour Barnaby by wearing a “DB” decal on their warm- up jackets and gear. Vic Finucci of Finucci Communications created the design.
The Canadian team wanted to keep Barnaby with them in some manner and the athletes’ representative, race walker Inaki Gomez, told Athletics Canada of the idea. After negotiating the logistics, the team came up with the tribute.
“I think it means a lot as a team,” Eriksson said. “It’s also an encouragement for others to see that we recognize a guy like him, more so for the guys that trained together with him on a daily basis and was part of running the 4x400 relay team. For a team, it’s going to be what we’re fighting for.”
Eriksson said he spoke with Barnaby’s mother, who was pleased that the team was finding a way to remember her son. The team plans to wear the patch for the rest of the year, although the Pan Am event at York University, near where Barnaby competed for the Brampton Track Club and in front of a pro- Canadian crowd, is likely to produce the rawest emotions.
Athletics, which kicks off with the women’s marathon on Saturday and the 20- kilometre race walks on Sunday, features some of Canada’s biggest stars at these Games.
Sprinter Andre De Grasse starts his week on Tuesday with the 100- metre heats; decathlete Damian Warner goes on Wednesday and Thursday; the heptathlon, featuring Jessica Zelinka, takes place on Friday and Saturday; Brianne Thiesen- Eaton, the reigning world silver medallist in heptathlon, is participating in the long jump on Friday.
The men’s 4x400- metre relay team competes on Friday and Saturday. Undoubtedly, the Canadians will be running in Toronto with Barnaby’s memory propelling them.
“You have to enjoy the moment, and make the best you can of the moment while it’s there. I think it’s a great ( reminder) to have that in mind,” Eriksson said.