Canada's Best!

The accolades are starting to roll in for the world's best athletes as this decade comes to a conclusion. Despite his indiscretions, Tiger Woods is widely regarded as the decade's best golfer. Lance Armstrong is being recognized as this decade's most dominant cyclist. Peyton Manning is the NFL's best. In baseball - dependant upon who you listen to it is A-Rod or Albert Pujols. But who would be recognized as Canada's Best Summer Olympic able-body athlete this decade?

The decision is highly subjective and could include any number of athletes, however, I think the following athletes showed a high level of achievement throughout the decade: They are:

Adam van Koeverden: Medals at two sepearte Olympiads, a world champion, a Lou Marsh award winner in 2004 and an Olympic Gold Medallist, this athlete has been at the very top of his sport for the last six years.

Daniel Nestor: An Olympic gold medallist at the 2000 Olympics, Nestor won all four grand slam tournaments this past decade and is currently the two time defending champion in men's doubles at Wimbledon. Nestor is arguably the most dominat men's doubles player of his era with 64 doubles titles to his record, more than any other active player today.

Steve Nash: At the 2000 Olympics, Nash almost single handily carried Canada's National Basketball program towards the Olympic podium before losing in a quarter final thriller to France. Since then, Nash has been at the very top of his sport, winning the Lou Marsh award in 2005 and is a two time winner of the NBA's most valuable award.

And the winner.....

Jake Wetzel. -Most Canadians have likely never heard of the man but he has been arguably the world's most dominant rower for the past ten years. A dual citizen of both the United States and Canada - Wetzel first competed for the United States at the 2000 Olympic Games. Disatisfied with US Rowing - Wetzel returned home to Canada in 2002 and went on to win the world championships in 2003 in the Open Men's 4-. A year later he found himself in the race of the decade going head to head against famed British Rower Mathew Pincent. Wetzel and his teamates ended up settling for silver losing the gold by less than 2 hundreths of a second. Following the games, Wetzel suffered through back surgery before returning to the sport in 2006. In 2007, Wetzel became a world champion for the second time winning the Men's 8+. And in 2008 Wetzel finally won Olympic gold - winning the men's 8+ race in convincing fashion. Today, Wetzel is a director withCanadian Athletes Now and is using his Ph.D degree from Oxford to benefit the Olympians of tomorrow- today.