Canadian Olympian David Calder has discovered navigating the waves of parenthood has many of the same emotional highs and lows he experienced as a high-performance athlete.
"I actually get a lot of the same sensations that I get before a race," said the four-time Olympian about watching his daughter Mira compete. "Even before novice competitions for her I get anxious for her and feel nervous and excited.
"I try to talk her through a lot of my race experiences but I have to be careful not to put 20 years of my experience into a five-minute talk, especially before a competition," he added. "I need to make sure I don't try too hard."
Calder will take a break from advising his nine-year-old daughter tonight to speak to some of Prince George's top young athletes at the fourth annual Fan the Flame celebration dinner. The silver-medal winning rower at the 2008 Beijing Olympics said his speech will take the young athletes through his Olympic journey from a seventh-place finish at the 2000 Games in Sydney to being disqualified at the 2004 Games in Athens to winning the silver medal and ending with a sixth-place finish last summer in London.
Calder said the disqualification in Athens, after he and partner Scott Frandsen were considered one of Canada's medal hopefuls, was devastating and he left the sport for three years to focus on his wife Rachel and his sixth-month old daughter. For the Victoria native, the time spent away from rowing, living in the real world of family and going to a daily 9 to 5 job was a major factor in winning the silver medal.
"Coming back for Beijing I had a real ownership of my dream," said Calder. "I talk about that and the success that Beijing brought with the silver medal and apply those lessons learned to my last Olympics where, I thought I had done everything right but still we came sixth.
"You can do everything right and you can have a really ideal scenario and it still doesn't work out the way you think it will," he added.
Calder took his boat out of the water after London, and though he'll never say never about returning for another Olympics, he said it's time to focus on his family, including three and a half year old son Bowen.
"For me family is so important and what I feel in the transition out of competitive sport is that now I get to be less selfish and more focused on my kids and my wife," said the 34-year-old.
Calder loves watching Mira participate in sports whether it's cross-country running, rugby, swimming or, her current favourite, judo. He said he'll encourage Mira in whatever she has a passion for.
"When I talk to kids the biggest message that I have is not to be afraid to dream," said Calder. "I think today kids are really fearful to put their dreams out on the line. I believe that one of the biggest things that I've given my kids is the ability to not be afraid to have dreams. It doesn't have to be in sport it could be in anything else, they could just go out and try anything and everything. You just have to believe in yourself to do it."
Calder will speak during the Fan the Flame event put on by PacificSport Northern BC at the Coast Inn of the North. Tickets are $55.
