Ontario Place West Channel


The Ontario Place West Channel, also known as the Toronto Western Beaches Watercourse is a 'flat water' training and competition centre for rowing, paddling and water sports located on the shoreline of Lake Ontario in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Description

The watercourse is situated in a man-made channel between the west island of Ontario Place and Exhibition Place, fronting Marilyn Bell Park just west of downtown Toronto. The venue is accessible through Exhibition Place by two pedestrian bridges over Lake Shore Boulevard as well as the Martin Goodman Trail which runs alongside the course.
Home of the Argonaut Rowing Club since 1921, the watercourse was used for national water skiing championships until the 1950s and for shows during the Canadian National Exhibition from the 1950s to the mid-1990s including the World Water Skiing Championships in 1953 and 1979 and was the host of the Wakeboard World Championships in 2016 and 2017. It is also one of the viewing locations for the annual Canadian International Air Show.

Toronto 2015 Pan and Parapan American Games

For the Toronto 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games the facility hosted the triathlon, open water swimming, waterskiing, and wakeboarding events. In conjunction with adjacent section of Lake Shore Boulevard, the venue also hosted the seating and start/finish line for road cycling, marathon and the 20-kilometre race walk.

Recent upgrades

During the winter of 2005-2006 Waterfront Toronto upgraded 650 metres of the western section of the channel to meet IDBF standards in order to host the Dragon Boat Racing Club Crew World Championships on August 8 to the 13, 2006. This included widening the facility to a 135 metre wide watercourse and a larger breakwater separating it from the lake.
Further upgrades to the eastern section of the channel took place in 2014 after Toronto was awarded the 2015 Pan American Games. 600 meters of the south channel breakwater wall and other water’s edge structures were restored to allow required wave attenuation for current IWWF waterski & wakeboard international competition standards.