Canadian women's 8 rowing team looks to begin Olympic title defence at worlds

When the Canadian women's eight rowing team takes to the water in Serbia at the world championships this week for the opportunity to qualify a boat for its Olympic title defence, the squad will look markedly different from the one that crossed the finish line first in Tokyo.

Two years removed from Canada's first Olympic gold medal in the women's eight since 1992, only three rowers — Toronto's Sydney Payne, Avalon Wasteneys of Campbell River, B.C., and Calgary's Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski — will return to a crew in Belgrade looking to be among five countries that can qualify in the women's eight for the Paris Games next summer.

The final of the women's eight begins at 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 10, with CBC Sports streaming the worlds live from Sept. 7-10.

Despite the turnover, Canada will have the luxury of returning the commanding voice of coxswain Kristen Kit of St. Catharines, Ont., who feels fortunate to be able to rely on her three other returnees in an expedited three-year quadrennial.

"There's a lot of conversation that's still happening about how we get an Olympic team up to speed in three years," said Kit to CBC Sports, who says she would have retired after Tokyo had her employer, RBC in Ontario, not allowed her to work remotely from B.C., to still be able to train with the rowing team.

"It really comes down to athlete retention ... the crews that have had very few retirements from Tokyo seem to be the ones that are going really fast right now."

Payne, 25, Wasteneys, 25, and Gruchalla-Wesierski, 32, have quickly had to step into a leadership role in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics, similar to the roles held by Lisa Roman, Susanne Grainger and Christine Roman at the Tokyo Olympics after competing at the 2016 Olympics in