HOMER, MI – As a young man growing up in Grayling, watching the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon was always a highlight of Mike Davis’ summer.
“I didn’t know many of the paddlers then, but I looked up to them before I started (canoeing),” Davis, 33, of Homer said. “It just looked like something I thought I’d want to do some day. I didn’t know it would turn into a 15-year journey.”
That journey reached a major milestone this summer when Davis and racing-partner Guillaume Blais won not only the Au Sable race, but the overall championship, the 2024 “Triple Crown of Canoe Racing.”
“It’s really validating,” Davis said. “I’ve been chasing this since I was 19. My focus was never really to win the ‘triple crown’ as whole – I mostly look at each individual race as its own goal. Finally winning the marathon this year was huge.”
An annual event taking place between Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend, the Triple Crown is a marathon series comprised of three of the largest professional canoe races in North America. This year’s races included:
The “General Clinton Canoe Regatta,” a single-day, 70 mile race from Cooperstown to Bainbridge along New York’s Susquehanna River.The “Au Sable River Canoe Marathon,” a non-stop, overnight 120-mile race from Grayling Charter Township to Oscoda on Michigan’s Au Sable River during the last weekend of July.The “Défi de Canot de la Saint-Maurice” (French for “St. Maurice Canoe Challenge”) in Quebec, where challengers race 120 miles from the cities of La Tuque to Three Rivers across three days.
A total of 18 paddlers completed in all three of the Triple Crown races this year, officials said.
Davis has competed in the series for the past 14 years, finishing in the top three and five spots on several occasions. Though Blais, of St-Boniface, Quebec, has won the title several times in the past, this year marked Davis’ first as champion.
When he’s not in a canoe, Davis works for the Barton Farm Co. in Homer.
“This has been Mike’s breakthrough,” said Steve Southard, a member of the marathon’s organizing committee.
The duo of Davis and Blais came back from a 13-minute deficit to take first in the Au Sable race, which Southard describes as “kind of unheard of” in the yearly race.
“It demonstrates how good those guys are in bigger, deeper water,” Southard said. “Each of the three races has its own set of challenges. There’s very few teams that are top-notch in both shallow and deep water.”
The General Clinton race in New York was the only race this year in which Davis and Blais placed third – they came in first in both Michigan and Quebec.
“The Susquehanna River provides a lot of challenges with a lot of different types of water along the course,” Davis said. “That’s earlier in the season, usually in the first hot weekend of the year. That’s probably the toughest challenge of the year.”
Mike Davis, left of trophy, and Guillaume Blais, right of trophy, are presented with the Triple Crown of Canoe Racing Cup following their victory at the final race of the season in Quebec on Sept. 1, 2024 (Photo provided by Emmanuelle Gelinas)Courtesy Photo | Emmanuelle Gélinas
Davis has been racing with Blais for the past three years, and the two men’s families have grown close over that time. Blais himself is a 20-year veteran canoeist, and the two hit it off after meeting at the week-long “unofficial training camp” for the Triple Crown that takes place every spring in Live Oak, Florida, Davis said.
Participants need to be in top physical condition to compete in the marathons, with the average pace for paddlers being 50-to-80 strokes per minute, officials said.
“A lot of the prep that goes into it, you got to take the time to endure that,” Davis said. “It’s not just that you can show up on the weekends and race – its a lot of training throughout the week.”
Many members of his wife’s family are also lifelong canoeists, and his two sons – ages 10 months and 4 years – both enjoy watching their father compete in the annual marathons, Davis said.
Though he might have reached the peak of North American canoe racing, Davis has no plans to leave the sport behind any time soon.
“It’s definitely part of my lifestyle now,” Davis said. “It runs in our family now. As long as I can, I’ll keep going at it.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-15 01:00:00
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