Ken’s excellent adventure

Ken Campbell is heading to The Show.

Not something on Broadway or at the Shaw Festival but rather the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

The long-time rowing official and regatta chair has been selected by Rowing Canada to be an umpire at the Olympic rowing competition at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.

Officials are only chosen to go to the Olympics once in their careers.

“Athletes get to go to the Stanley Cup or the Super Bowl. They are going to the Big Show and I am going to the Big Show. It is going to be amazing,” Campbell said.

He left for Paris on July 23.

Rowing Canada has about 14 or 15 international umpires at its disposal and interested umpires submit their name to a selection committee which chooses who is assigned to specific events at the world level. Rowing Canada then submits its selections to World Rowing and 19 umpires from around the world are chosen to officiate at the Olympics.

Campbell found out in January by phone call that he had been selected for the Paris Games.

“It was pretty cool. I had an inkling just from the discussions that I had had at the world championships in September in Serbia which was kind of a trial. They were putting people in certain positions and I had some discussions with the president of the jury there.”

Campbell has officiated at three senior world championships, one junior worlds and a pair of World Cups.

He’s not sure what he is most excited about going to Paris.

“It’s just being there.”

At regattas, umpires look after: weighing of athletes; checking the equipment to make sure it is safe; monitoring the water and course conditions to make sure everything is safe and fair; following the races or being stationary in one position checking to see that there is no interference on the course; starting the races; aligning the boats at the start to ensure everyone is even at the start; serving as judges at the finish line; and, being part of the control commission that checks to see that the right athletes going out in the boats.

There are a number of attributes that make a good rowing umpire.

“You need to be personable and in a lot of areas where you are talking you need a monotone (voice) and you need to be even-keeled because people pick up on your tone. They think you are mad or whatever,” Campbell said. “It is also a lot of common sense.”

Umpires have to be ready to work long days.

“At most world championships, racing starts at eight o’clock in the morning and goes to four or five o’clock in the afternoon but you are also there for meetings before and after. But the Olympics I think is a little shorter time schedule. There are less boats and less racing but we still have a lot of meetings and discussions and other stuff as well.”

Campbell has never been to Paris before but he has been to Europe. He will be staying at a hotel downtown close to Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral which is about 25 minutes from the race course.

The rowing competition at the Olympics starts July 27 and concludes Aug. 3.