May 16, 2008
Kelly Doody
Calgary Sun
If there’s one thing you can say about Lisa Bowes, it’s that she is easily one of the city’s biggest and brightest ambassadors of women’s amateur sport.
The popular CTV and TSN sports anchor and reporter decided to take her passion for sport from behind the camera and extend it out to the golf course, by hosting the first-ever CTV Golf for Gold 9-Hole Classic.
A long list of esteemed female Olympic athletes, including Blythe Hartley (diving), Regan Lauscher(luge), Allison Forsyth (downhill skiing) and Lyndsey Clapperton (triathlon), to name but a few, paired up with local businesswomen for a day on the links at Valley Ridge yesterday, both to spend some quality time networking and to help raise money for the Canadian Athletes Now Fund -– also know as ‘CAN Fund’.
Canadian Olympic bronze and World Championship gold medal-winning diver Blythe Hartleyis one of many CAN Fund bursary recipients currently training to reach the podium in Beijing. She is quick to credit her international success in the pool with the ability to focus on her full-time training schedule, without having to also hold down a full-time job to make ends meet.
“When your time is so monopolized by training -– especially in the Olympic year -– it becomes very hard to find outside sources for funding,” she says.
The CAN Fund -– which Blythe refers to as ‘amazing’ –- is unique in that it puts funds directly in the hands of the athletes, in turn freeing up time to travel, train and compete properly in the lead-up to an Olympic Games.
Be sure to watch for many more years of Golf for Gold tournaments from Lisa Bowes, not to mention many more medals from the athletes who benefit from her efforts.