The women's kayaking team got Canada of to a good start at the Pan American Games on Saturday, winning Canada's first gold medal.
Michelle Russell, Emilie Fournel, K C Fraser and Hannah Vaughan clocked a time of 36.495 seconds to take the gold medal. Cuba took 2nd place with Argentina back in 3rd third, 1.226 seconds off the winning mark.
Canada are one step closer to their goal of finishing in the top two in the overall medal count. Canadian team of 719 athletes and will need to amass 200 medals over the next two weeks to hit that target.
Michelle Russell said, "There's too many factors going in to how I feel. I can't pick out one single thing."
She went on to say "I can't describe it, I can't find the words to describe how it feels to win gold, in the Pan Am Games, in Toronto, on home soil, the very first medal. I can't."
"There's too many factors going in to how I feel. I can't pick out one single thing."
The Canadian team said home home fans were tremendous boost to them and helped to bring home the gold.
"We spend a lot of time racing in Europe and when we're in Europe you hear the crowd roaring and I like to pretend it's for me and tell myself 'Oh, those are my fans,"' said Hannah Vaughan. "Here you don't have to pretend. You know they're your fans and they're all here for us."
"It's a really incredible feeling having that."
"We always race at this course but today was a really special occasion," said Fraser, "There was more family, more everybody. Everybody's here to watch what we do and it's great. I think just today, on home soil, made it that much more special."
The Canadians are at home at Welland Flatwater Centre, having trained there and also competed there in the past. At the 2013 under-23 world championships Russell won gold in the K-1 200 metre event and bronze in the K-1 500 metres.