Cameron Baerg

Athlete (2017)

Rowing

Cameron Baerg had a hand in history.

He won a world title. He won an Olympic medal. No rower from Saskatchewan had ever done that before.

Cameron started rowing in 1987 with the Saskatoon Rowing Club. Two years later, he won a silver in men's eight and a bronze in four at the Canada Summer Games in Saskatoon. He joined Rowing Canada's national program in 1997, based at its training centre in Victoria.

Baerg competed in his first world championship in 1998 placing 12th in the men's quad. In 1999, he finished fourth in the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg and returned to the World Championships in 2002 placing 7th in the men's pair.

In 2003, he reached the top. Cameron was in a four crew which included Jake Wetzel of Saskatoon, winning the prestigious Royal Henley Regatta, the Lucerne World cup race, and ultimately winning the World Championships in Italy. At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the same crew won a silver medal in one of the most exciting and closest races in Olympic History, only to be edged out by a mere 8 hundredths of a second. That was Canada's only medal in rowing in the Olympics in Greece.

Cameron competed in the world championships one more time, in 2005, to cap his 19-year career in rowing.