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The Lima 2019 Pan-Am Games are nearing their end. The Games began on July 26 and will end this Sunday. The Pan American Games are a major sporting event in the Americas featuring summer sports and thousands of athletes.

The competition is held every four years in the year before the Summer Olympics. Tokyo will be the summer 2020 host.

The Yukon did not have an athlete competing in any of the events in Lima but Lynwen Birch, the head coach of Flatwater North, was there as a coach for the sprint canoe and kayak team.

Lynwen said the governing bodies are making a concerted effort to have teams headed by both female and male coaches.

鈥淚 think our governing body, Canoe/Kayak Canada is trying to make an effort to develop women in coaching,鈥� said Birch. 鈥淭hey start at lower levels with younger kids, development athletes then start giving coaches opportunities on international tours.

鈥淚t gives us the experience with more developed athletes and all of that filters back to the clubs.鈥�

With the experience of the Pan-Am Games, Birch said she can bring what she learned back to the local club and teach the young paddlers how the top-level athletes prepare for large events.

鈥淭he learning was there for me as well even though the athletes aren鈥檛 my athletes, their coaches stayed back in Canada to prepare for World Championships,鈥� said Birch. 鈥淪o they give learning back to guest coaches or touring coaches.

鈥淚 was receiving as much as I was trying to support them at the top level. I am so grateful for that. Now it is how do I pass this on to these kids? We鈥檝e had three sessions and I鈥檓 already noticing it. It is how do you relate it back to adolescence on a day-to-day basis.鈥�

Birch said how the Canadian team athletes dealt with pressure is one of her biggest takeaways.

鈥淧eople deal with high-stress situations in completely different ways,鈥� said Birch.

鈥淪ome are joking around and present with other athletes. Some have headphones on and are in that space. Some are quiet as, and they aren鈥檛 normally that way.

鈥淭hen the change is they start to do well in their heats and in semis and you can see the confidence building. It is the understanding of how to remove stress and unneeded use of energy. The tension and the stress before races, how do you dispel that.

鈥淭hen it鈥檚 the little things like what they are wearing and when they get changed to get on the water. How long they are on the water for their warm-up paddles. Those little rituals. So we are already experimenting with things.鈥�

All athletes will have those rituals to rely on and Birch said another takeaway was how the athletes coped when things were different, which is something Flatwater athletes constantly deal with as their competitions are all outside of the Yukon.

鈥淲hat are their coping mechanisms and their level of resilience in their practice?鈥� said Birch. 鈥淗ow can they call up those things they know about being adaptable and malleable to a certain point but not lose enough that it鈥檚 going to rattle performance.

鈥淵ou have to practice when you are feeling fatigued and train when you haven鈥檛 gotten enough sleep. That is all part of the learning.鈥�

Birch spoke about how those practices were important for her as well as a coach.

鈥淲e鈥檝e gone from the Yukon summer to the winter in Peru,鈥� said Birch. 鈥淎s coaches, you have to be one step ahead of the athletes. Their boats, they are weighed properly, the grip tape for the feet. All those little things are there and if something fails there is a backup ready and waiting.

鈥淎 lot of that comes from teamwork. The coaches worked incredibly well together and the athletes are all friends and they鈥檝e been on tour before so it was an incredible vibe.鈥�

Going from a local club in the Yukon to an international event with high-level athletes Birch talked about her role in motivating the Canadian athletes.

鈥淔or me, I am not here to step in and throw my weight around and be a guru and showing all my experience in the sport and this is what I can teach you,鈥� said Birch.

鈥淚t is about being organized, knowing where all things are so if something goes you can jump onto it and make sure the racing experience for the athletes is as smooth as possible.鈥�

鈥�(Also) I think a lot of it was the debriefs after the racing, talking with the athletes through about how they raced. What did they want to put away and not bring on to the next experience of racing? We say 鈥榯ake what you need and leave the rest.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 just that. It鈥檚 little cues to these athletes because they are the experts.鈥�

Birch said the Canadian athletes were not only ambassadors for young Canadian athletes but other nations took notice of them in Lima.

鈥淵ou had other nations looking to that example and even the spectators in the crowd realized the Canadians were doing really well,鈥� said Birch. 鈥淚t was so wonderful to be a part of that.鈥�

Birch said she had a great time representing the Yukon while in Lima.

鈥淚 talked about it,鈥� said Birch. 鈥淪peaking to coaches from places like Jamaica, and athletes from Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba and just talking about I represent Canada but I represent the north end, north of 60.

鈥淚 think they just didn鈥檛 have a concept of where that is and I鈥檓 talking about the temperature in the water and light in the sky, but comparing all those different realities of paddling. We are all one sport, people on water, on boats, trying to move fast with the conditions and the elements.

鈥淲e are doing it one way in the north and they are doing it their way in the south. I think there is a fascination, I spent a lot of time talking about the strong paddling community up here. People paddle in the Yukon.鈥�

Her experience in Lima will help her along as the paddlers at Flatwater continue to grow.

鈥淜ids up here they are tough they are gritty, things that would bother people in other places don鈥檛 bother them here,鈥� said Birch. 鈥淭heir learning curve has been so steep. Their learning process has been so fast.

鈥淚t鈥檚 challenging me. I鈥檝e had to adapt the program quite a bit because they are progressing so quickly.鈥�

Although it is causing her to adapt, Birch said it is wonderful as a coach to see athletes young or high-level progress rapidly.