Local Olympian celebrates 50th anniversary of 1976 Montreal Games<\/p>\n
Published 10:04 am Friday, July 31, 2026<\/p>\n
This summer will mark half a century since Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics that featured a Cranbrook athlete representing her country on home soil.<\/p>\n
Joy Ward Fera, who competed in Coxed Four rowing, is returning to Quebec between July 30-Aug. 1 where she will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the XXI Olympiad with athletes from around the world who participated in the event.<\/p>\n
There will be a special welcome and opening ceremonies for athletes who participated in the rowing events hosted at Olympic Basin in Parc Jean-Drapeau \u2014 the same venue where the rowing events were held 50 years ago.<\/p>\n
The Montreal Games were historic as it was the first Olympics where women were granted entry into the rowing event.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery meaningful because it hadn\u2019t even been on my radar, and especially to be a beginner at age 24,\u201d said Ward-Fera, in an interview with the Cranbrook Townsman.<\/p>\n
Just as the world came together recently with the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, so too was it a similar experience during the \u20191976 Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, sport and the Olympic movement brings the world together\u2026, \u201c said Ward-Fera. \u201cIt gives you a more global perspective from your town, your province and your countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
She got into the sport of rowing two years before the games, but grew up as an athlete, particularly as a downhill skier.<\/p>\n
She trained with the Burnaby Lake Rowing Club starting in 1974.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all started from being able to embrace a sport that I didn\u2019t have on my radar at all and didn\u2019t know much about it,\u201d said Ward-Fera.<\/p>\n
During the Montreal Games, Ward-Fera and her teammates recorded a seventh-place finish in the Coxed Four.<\/p>\n
Beyond the athletic competitions, memories also include brushes with the British Royal Family, particularly a run-in with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at the Olympic Village and taking a trip with fellow athletes to Quebec City to see the sights.<\/p>\n
She continued rowing after the Montreal Games, with back-to-back bronze medal results in the Eight at the 1977 and 1978 World Championships, while also helping her team to a fifth-place finish during the 1979 Worlds.<\/p>\n
Ward-Fera and her team trained hard going into the Moscow Games in 1980, however, the event was famously boycotted by 66 countries \u2014 including the United States and Canada \u2014 following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Before the boycott became official, Ward-Fera and her teammates trained as if they were going to compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us gave up,\u201d she said. \u201cNone of us quit. We thought\u2026the U.S. made their announcement in January 1980. Canada didn\u2019t make the announcement until April.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond her rowing career, Ward-Fera was (and continues to be) also an accomplished downhill skier. She won gold in dual slalom at the 1971 Canada Winter Games, and represented Canada in Alpine Skiing at the 1972 FISU [World University Winter Games] in Lake Placid, NY.<\/p>\n
She co-founded the Delta Deas Rowing Club in 1985 and volunteers with the Rockies Rowing Club whenever she\u2019s back in the area, as she currently resides in the Lower Mainland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local Olympian celebrates 50th anniversary of 1976 Montreal Games Published 10:04 am Friday, July 31, 2026 This summer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":838585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-838584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}