The Ottawa Curling Club’s Team Homan won Female Team of the Year at the Ottawa Sports Awards. The team’s skip, Rachel Homan, also won Female Athlete of the Year. From left to right, the team members and award presenters are city councillor Rainer Bloess, Lisa Weagle, Alison Kreviazuk, Emma Miskew, Rachel Homan and Ottawa Sports Awards board member Kimberly Swenson.
A growing, not-for-profit event that brings tens of thousands of spectators and athletes to Centretown’s streets every spring was recognized for its contributions to the city at the 2013 Ottawa Sports Awards.
The Special Recognition Award was handed to organizers of the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend in its 40th anniversary year.
The awards were held at Algonquin College on Jan. 29, with a banquet for more than 600 people. The purpose is to recognize the city’s top amateur athletes, coaches and organizations for their performance or for long-time contributions to Ottawa’s sports scene.
Ottawa Race Weekend has grown from hosting around 4,000 runners when Jim Robinson took over as director 17 years ago to a record-breaking 44,000 last year. Roughly 10 per cent more people are expected this spring and profits go directly back into improving the event for the next year.
"We feel that we’ve raised the level of this event, we consider it to be world class now, and we’re really proud of that," said Robinson after receiving the award. The recognition is a validation of the hard work his team and thousands of volunteers put in to Ottawa Race Weekend over the years, he said.
It’s now Canada’s largest running event, with 2K, 5K, 10K, half and full marathon distances as well as the wheelchair marathon and a kids’ marathon. The half-marathon event sold out in November, and only a handful of spots remain to register in a few other distance categories. This year the race will be held from May 23-25.
"Our promotional campaign now is not about registering," says John Halvorsen, who took over for Jim Robinson in January as director of the event.
"Effectively everything is sold out but if you’re not running, come out and cheer because the runners really do notice and they want to come back to the city," says Halvorsen. The retired Norwegian runner won the men’s 10K four times between 1988-1995.
"This generates close to $30 million now for the city every year in activity, and that’s a fantastic situation to be in," he says.
Just under half of the participants last year were from outside the Ottawa area, with a pair of Ethiopian runners winning the male and female marathons and two Moroccans taking the 10K races.
More and more internationally recognized runners have participated over the last 10 years, and as such overall attendance and quality of the races has only improved.
Centretown resident Graham Reid has run in several half and full marathons, including the Scotiabank Marathon in Toronto, but calls Ottawa his favourite place to run.
"It’s pretty cool, you feel like you have all this support from people who don’t even know you," says Reid.
"Running is such an individual sport, but an event like this you can push yourself because other people are pushing themselves and people are out there to cheer you on."
Reid ran a personal best half-marathon time in last year’s race weekend.
John Halvorsen explained that spectators come out in droves and the energy it generates in the community is infectious.
"There’s talk about coming to Ottawa, and how engaged the community is. From an event perspective, it’s something that is unique and in one of the best positions in Canada," says Halvorsen.
The starting line is at the corner of Laurier Avenue and Elgin Street, and the course runs south along Queen Elizabeth Drive.
The full and half-marathon courses do an approximate loop around Centretown, so runners and spectators flock the neighbourhood’s streets over the weekend in late May.
Other notable Centretown winners were Team Homan from the Ottawa Curling Club for Best Female Team, with skip Rachel Homan also taking home the Kristina Groves Female Athlete of the Year Award.
Their coach Earle Morris, father of gold medal-winning curler John Morris, was nominated for Male Coach of the Year.