Trail native Lauren (nee-Bay) Regula will compete in her third Olympic Games after being named to Team Canada’s Softball squad last week.
Thirteen years after the last Olympic softball tournament, Team Canada is ready to go for gold at Tokyo 2020.
The 15-player roster includes four players who were on that last Olympic team which finished fourth at Beijing 2008 – Danielle Lawrie, Kaleigh Rafter, Regula and Jenn Salling. Regula will be headed to her third Olympic Games, having also competed at Athens 2004.
In a passionate post on Facebook, Lauren shared news of her most recent success.
“From two Olympics – to 3 children in 3 years – to 6 years battling post-partum depression – to working my ass off to find my way back to myself… and now being named to represent TEAM CANADA.
“Words can’t express my feelings right now.
Grateful.
Inspired.
Proud.”
That quartet will be joined in this year’s Olympic tournament by Jenna Caira, Emma Entzminger, Larissa Franklin, Jennifer Gilbert, Sara Groenewegen, Kelsey Harshman, Victoria Hayward, Janet Leung, Joey Lye, Erika Polidori, and Natalie Wideman.
Nine of those players were part of Canada’s memorable gold medal in front of the home fans at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games when they defeated Team USA in the final. It was Canada’s first women’s softball gold medal at the Pan Am Games since 1983.
In 2018, Canada won bronze at the WBSC World Championships in Chiba, Japan, defeating the host nation to take their spot on the podium. The only players on the Olympic team who weren’t on that roster are Groenewegen and Regula.
At the time, Regula was still in the early days of a comeback after ending an eight-year retirement in 2016. She was also seeking treatment for serious postpartum depression, which she battled for six years and is now opening up about as she feels she has a “new lease on life”.
Groenewegen was in the midst of her own medical emergency. Diagnosed with Legionnaires disease, she was placed in a medically induced coma for 10 days and was hospitalized while her teammates competed halfway across the world. She detailed her incredible story in a first-person article for Olympic.ca in November 2020.
Rafter and Salling have been stalwarts on the national team since their first Olympic appearance. They contributed to Canada’s bronze medals at the world championships in 2010 and 2016. It was Rafter who hit the walkoff homerun that clinched Canada’s Olympic berth for the upcoming Games.
Lawrie – like Regula – had retired and started a family. But in 2017, when word came that softball was being reinstated at the Olympic Games, she decided she wanted another go at winning the Olympic medal that had eluded her when she was 21.
After winning silver at the 2019 Pan Am Games in Lima, Canada booked its ticket to Tokyo 2020 at the WBSC Americas Olympic Qualifier on Sept. 1, 2019. In front of the partisan crowd in Surrey, Canada topped its group with a 5-0 record and then went 4-1 in the Super Round, securing the needed top-two finish in the tournament with 7-0 five-inning mercy rule win against Brazil in their final game.
Canada heads into the six-team Olympic tournament ranked third in the world behind the United States and Japan. Mexico (5th in world ranking), Australia (8th in world ranking) and Italy (10th in world ranking) round out the field.
Women’s softball was included at four Olympic Games from Atlanta 1996 to Beijing 2008. Canada competed in each of those tournaments, with the near miss of the podium in Beijing as its best-ever finish.
Softball and baseball are back on the Olympic program as sports proposed by the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee. They will not be included at the next Olympic Games at Paris 2024, making this summer’s tournament a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many of Canada’s top softball players.
With files from Softball Canada
