Canadian kayaker David Ford ready to ride the rapids one more season
TORONTO — In nearly three decades as Canada’s finest whitewater kayaker, David Ford has shattered stereotypes about age and high performance.
The five-time Olympian recently earned a spot on the Canadian team for this summer’s World Cup tour and the world championships. It’s a final chance to navigate the river in the red-and-white Maple Leaf, and an opportunity to bid the sport a final farewell. And it comes both after a frightening cancer diagnosis, and a couple of months after Ford turned 50.
“We’re pushing that boundary and figuring out: where is the limit of human potential?” Ford said. “And for me to be on a team where we have a young 18-year-old junior doing really well (Keenan Simpson), and then we’ve got Michael Tayler (25) who went to the last couple of Olympics doing really well. And then we have a 50-year-old who’s competing in his fifth different decade of his life. And competing well. I think it’s cool.”
Ford had stepped away from competing after missing out on the Rio Olympic team. He’d been diagnosed with skin cancer which involved his thyroid and the treatment had sapped his energy by the time he stepped into his boat at the Olympic trials.