CANADA IS HIGH ON DEBBIE
Sarah Pileggi
July 19, 1976
Canada's best high jumper, the willowy figure floating over the bar at left, is 23-year-old Debbie Brill from Aldergrove, B.C. She is one of her nation's brightest hopes for a track and field medal, and by rights she should be suffering under enormous pressure. If she were to win, it would be the first individual gold medal for a Canadian female since Ethel Catherwood cleared 5'3" in 1928 in Amsterdam. The last gold medal any Canadian won in track and field was Duncan McNaughton's in the high jump in 1932. And at the Munich Games the Canadian track team failed to win a single medal of any description. In view of this bleak history it is not difficult to imagine how much Canada, the host, would like Debbie Brill to win. Or place or show, for that matter.
It is possible that if Brill had not walked out of the arena four years ago Canada would have a better shot than it does at its first track and field gold since 1932. But Debbie at 23 is onto something else. "The goal," she says, "is not a certain height and it's not winning something. It's just doing it right and as well as you can."
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