WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
Canadian race walker Dunfee on solid ground after Rio controversy,
Doug Smith on DeMar DeRozan’s record quest, Dave Feschuk with the Leafs in Arizona and more sports on A30 and A31
During the Rio Olympics, the spotlight shone brightly on Canada’s summer athletes who, on the whole, performed better than ever. This is the second in a series on six athletes, their experiences in Rio and what life has been like for them since then:
Evan Dunfee has been called hearteningly honourable and a true sportsman for the way he handled being bumped from third to fourth in the 50-kilometre race walk at the Rio Olympics.
But being called Canadian is what he likes best.
“People used the term that it was the Canadian thing to do, and I like that way of describing it,” he said.
In the closing minutes of the race, with his body shutting down in the heat, Dunfee was in a fierce battle for bronze. That’s when it seemed that Japan’s Hirooki Arai hip-checked Dunfee on a pass, throwing him off stride and ending his chance at third.
Arai was later disqualified, moving Dunfee to bronze and awarding Canada its first Olympic medal in this event. But then Japan appealed and won, bumping Dunfee back to fourth, and he decided not to push it any further.
“Even if an appeal to (the Court of Arbitration for Sport) were successful, I would not have been able to receive that medal with a clear conscience,” Dunfee wrote in a statement that day. “I will never allow myself to be defined by the accolades I receive, rather the integrity I carry through life.”
In the months since Rio, Dunfee has regretted a few aspects of that race — he knows he broke from the pack too early — but not the ending. He’s proud of how hard he competed and pleasantly surprised by the effect it had on so many people.
“It always shocks me when someone stops me in the street and says: ‘I watched your race. It was so amazing’ . . . Every time it happens I’m just as shocked and blown away by it,” Dunfee said, noting that race walking is more likely to be ignored or made fun of than respected.
“If I had won gold it’d be different, but if I had won silver or bronze and there was no drama around it I probably wouldn’t have the same platform and opportunities that I have now,” said the 26-year-old from Richmond, B.C. “I’d probably have more money . . . don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have some more sponsorship opportunities, but to be able to go into schools and share my story is what I wanted to do before, and so to get those opportunities now is awesome.”
Financially, he actually went back- wards with long-time sponsor ASICS dropping him without even giving a reason why.
Now, he’s preparing to deliver himself up to science. In January and February he’ll be in Australia, taking part in a high-fat diet study on athletes.
“They want to do more research and I do love research,” he said, laughing.
Dunfee, after all, is the guy who helped expose Russian doping in the sport — going so far as to identify and compare shoe models to prove they were competing while banned — long before the World Anti-Doping Agency was interested in investigating.
After Dunfee and his training partners had their first go at the high-fat diet a year ago — replacing oatmeal and pasta staples with the likes of eggs benedict and bacon, red meat with cream sauces and desserts — coach Gerry Dragomir was sure none of his athletes would submit to it again. Wasn’t it awful? “It was,” said Dunfee. “It was terrible. I was depressed, but I raced really well so I might as well try it again.”
Mathieu Bilodeau will join Dunfee in Australia, but not his other training partners — Ben Thorne, the 20kilometre bronze medallist at the worlds who is back at university tak- ing his engineering classes, and twotime Olympian Inaki Gomez, who is busy with his law career.
Dunfee’s next big race isn’t until the world championships in August, but he’s already thinking about the next Summer Olympics in 2020 in Tokyo.
“When you break it all up, there’s not much time between now and then,” he said.
Thanks to Dunfee’s gutsy performance in a drama-filled race and his actions to follow, race walkers may find they have a few more fans next time.
“All we’ve ever wanted for our sport is to enhance the profile, get it a little more respected, and it’s great to have been part of that.”