Posted: October 20, 2005

Athletics: Ottawa Hall of Fame Class heavy on olympic flavour

By Martin Cleary , The Ottawa Citizen

Which one of these Ottawa sport icons -- Glenroy Gilbert, Mariann Domonkos and Caroll-Ann Alie, all athletes, and Ken Parker, Al Rae and Donald Booth, all builders -- is not like the others?

If you hear the Olympic anthem playing softly in the background and see a faint image of the five interlocking rings in the distance, then you'll understand the theme of the latest group of inductees into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame.

Gilbert, Alie and Domonkos combined for nine Summer and Winter Olympics between from 1988 through 2000. Rae refereed basketball in four Summer Olympics. Parker, a pioneer in running and track and field and a corporate supporter of amateur sports, sponsored triathlete Sharon Donnelly and watched her compete in the 2000 Olympics.

That leaves Booth as the only inductee not connected to the Olympics, but the 86-year-old could trot and pace five-ring circles around his hall of fame peers with the standardbreds he has bred, trained and raced over 58 years in Manotick.

On Wednesday, the three prominent athletes and three distinguished builders will enter the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame in the Ottawa Civic Centre salons.

The ceremony begins at 7 p.m. with a reception at 5 p.m. Tickets are $50 for adults and $25 for students and are available by calling 564-2675.

"Anything I got, I had to get the hard way," Booth said, recalling travelling 16 kilometres a day to the Metcalfe Continuation School (high school) by horse and buggy or sleigh.

Booth not only excelled as an administrator, but also as a horse owner. Twenty-five years go, he introduced parentage blood typing as a way to detail properly identify standardbreds.

"We had found someone's old mare was bred to a stallion and they put in the name of a better horse," he said, explaining the need for improved horse record identity. "A lot of people over the next two years were sending horses to the meat factory."

Today, his identity test is done through DNA by taking a hair from the horse's mane.

Booth also was named Harness Horseman International Man of the Year in 1981. He has been a director of the Ontario Harness Horsemen's Association for 41 years, and was Canadian Standardbred Horse Society president for two terms.

In 1975, he watched Gaelic Almahurst earn $100,000 and become the Canadian age trotting mare of the year.

Gilbert, 37, is one of Ottawa's greatest Olympians, competing in the Summer Games in 1988, '92, '96 and 2000 in long jump, sprints and relays. In 1994, he ventured into bobsleigh as a crew member for Chris Lori in Lillehammer.

Gilbert celebrated one of Canada's four gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in the 4x100-metre race with Donovan Bailey, Bruny Surin and Robert Esmie. He also helped Canada win 4x100-metre relay gold in the 1995 and '97 world athletics championships.

As a teenager with potential, he dared to believe he could win an Olympic gold medal.

"It was naivete at the time. In high school, you don't know what goes into it ... until you get into it and see what it's all about. Before the Atlanta Olympics, this was tougher than I thought," said Gilbert, who as also the 1995 Pan Am Games 100-metre champion.

Domonkos, 47, left retirement to participate in the Olympic table tennis debut in 1988.

"At the North American qualifying event, I didn't expect to make it. I had retired a year before," she said. "For one month before the qualifying, I practised like crazy. At the qualifying, I beat an American girl who I had never beaten before.

"There was no real pressure. I didn't expect to make it."

At the Games, she placed 25th in women's singles. Then she returned to a career in coaching and sport development.

While Domonkos's best memories are of her early victories, her best international results were in doubles with Gloria Hsu. They reached the quarterfinals of the 1985 world championships and won gold at the 1985 Commonwealth championships. A 10-time Canadian singles champion (1977-86), she also captured the 1982 Canadian Open title.

When Alie didn't make the grade at the 1984 Olympic windsurfer qualifying event to compete in the demonstration sport of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, she vowed to win the 1985 world Mistral championship title. She worked hard on her three-minute freestyle routine, did well in the long-distance race, slalom and course race, and captured the first of her three world titles in 18 years with the national team.

She finally made it to the Olympics in 1992 at age 32. She also competed in the '96 and 2000 Games, finishing in the top 20 each time.

"I was in the top three after the first three days (of the 1992 Olympics) before I got food poisoning in the Olympic Village. I remember coming back from that Olympics and thinking it was the best thing in the world," said Alie, now 45.

Parker, 64, made his mark in Ottawa through road racing. He was a co-founder of the National Capital Marathon and brought the Avon and Bonnie Bell series of women's races to Ottawa.

He also was a founder of the East Ottawa Lions (now Ottawa Lions) Track and Field Club and still runs the Ottawa Athletic Club Racing Team.

As race director for the National Capital Marathon, Canada's largest marathon, he saw 4,700 runners compete in 1983 and then watched it die a few years later before reviving it.

"That whole marathon experience (1974-85) was very exciting," he said.

Before selling his company Sirius, he was a corporate friend to local teams and Donnelly, who narrowly missed qualifying for her second Olympics in Athens in 2004.

"We tried to do something to make a difference and to make it a bit better," he said.

Rae, 72, officiated basketball games around the world, including the 1964, '68, '72 and '76 Olympics, four Pan Am Games, three World University Games and seven Asian championships.

He also was on the technical committee for FIBA, the world governing body for basketball, from 1976 to '93, with 10 years as a vice-president. During that time, he attended another three Olympics and was a spectator at the 1960 Rome Games.

"As a spectator, it was a marvellous experience and to take part was a great thrill," said Rae, who refereed the 1975 European men's final.

In 1997, FIBA made Rae the first North American to receive its Order of Merit.

Winners' circle: Elena Bales of Ottawa was fourth overall in the women's race and second among juniors with 5,200 points in the Pan Am modern pentathlon championships at Buenos Aires.... The Ottawa Nepean Canadians captured their fourth consecutive men's tier 1 AA Canadian touch football championship in the Tournament of Champions at Millenium Park. They beat the Burlington Piranhas 38-6, and Marco Dinardo was the most valuable player. The list of national champions also included Ottawa Mudpigs, men's tier 3, and Ottawa Devils, who defeated Flag Mag Fleur de Lys 14-6 in the women's tier 1 A final.... Simon Rodgers of Gloucester kicked one convert in a losing cause as the West downed the East 13-7 in a national team men's rugby match in Vancouver.... University of Ottawa grad Sherraine Mackay, who won a women's bronze medal in epee and helped Canada finish sixth in the team competition, will be on a book tour across Canada beginning tomorrow to promote her book, Running With Swords.... Susanne Russell of the Ottawa Athletic Club Racing Team and Zone 3 Sports was 10th in the women's 25-29 class of the world age-group triathlon championships in Hawaii in two hours 14 minutes 31 seconds.

This story originally appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and is reprinted with permission