The next morning we walked to Richmond Olympic Oval. We didn't know exactly what to expect. We were excited and a bit nervous. She registered and was weighed and measured. They had 4 Olympians who were at the Training Grounds who spoke throughout the day. There were 100 kids ages 14-25. Hanna was one of the youngest. She looked like a skinny white girl compared to some of the athletes. They each did four stations - power, speed, strength and endurance.
At the end of the day, they announced the top athlete who gets to go and watch the summer olympics in Brazil and who will receive funding for Olympic training. There were other sport organizations there, too, scouting for athletes -like the cycling team, rowing, etc.
Hanna had put in her application that she played basketball, ran track and competed in rodeo. She was known as the cowgirl. A reporter from the Vancouver Sun had called and interviewed her a few days before we went. In the opening speech, the Olympian talked about how varied the background of the athletes - from rodeo to ballet. She was interviewed by two different tv stations and they both knew that she competed in rodeo.
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This it the winner of the competition. She was in Hanna's group. Someday when she is famous, we can say that we met her.
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| Hanna waiting for the sky train back to the airport. |
The whole event was cool but not as beneficial as we expected. We soon realized that she wasn't going to be the winner. We realized that being an Olympian is not exactly her dream - you have to completely live in training for years and years. They never gave us any indication of her scores or how she compared to the other athletes. When it was over, there were still many hours until our flight home, but we were tired and didn't really feel like doing anything else, so we hung out at the airport for a really long time.
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| This is Hanna's new dream job -- to drive the carts around the airport carrying passengers. |
We landed back in Calgary at midnight, drove home and crawled into bed at 3:30 am. I woke up at 9:10 and we still made it to church by 9:50. We sat down in church and Carly said, "I forgot to brush my teeth." Hanna and I did enjoy our Sunday afternoon naps that day.
Here are the newspaper articles:
BY
GARY KINGSTON, VANCOUVER SUN FEBRUARY 19, 2016
Rock climbing and
Ultimate Frisbee are not yet part of the Olympic sports program, although it
could well happen as the International Olympic Committee attempts to remain
relevant to the next generation.
Climbing is one of five
sports that will be voted on this summer as a potential addition to the
schedule for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games. And last August, the IOC officially
recognized Ultimate Frisbee’s international governing body, making it eligible
for possible inclusion.
But two teenage British
Columbians have decided to see whether their Olympic dreams might be achieved
quicker in a sport with a more established pedigree.
Hannah Block, 18, of New
Westminster and Emily Ip, 19, of Richmond are two of 100 young athletes who
will take part today in RBC Training Ground, a new collaboration between the
bank, which is a longtime sponsor of Olympic athletes, the CBC, the Canadian
Olympic Committee and the Canadian Olympic Foundation.
The athletes, between
the ages of 14 and 25, responded to a television and YouTube ad campaign
designed to help sport officials uncover those with Olympic podium potential in
sports the athletes may not have considered. They will be put through a series
of tests at the Richmond Olympic Oval to determine their level of strength,
speed, power and endurance.
Officials from seven
national sport organizations will be on hand to assess the athletes. Similar
events will be held in Toronto, Montreal and Halifax over the next month.
“I’m taking it as a
unique opportunity … to connect and meet with people involved in a number of
sports, people who live and breathe sport,” says Block, who has competed in
Italy and New Caledonia in the climbing discipline of bouldering on artificial
walls.
“I’m excited to see
Olympians and maybe work with them and see what potential opportunities are out
there and what the future can hold.”
A former dancer, Block
says she believes her flexibility and the strength she’s gained through
climbing will serve her well.
The diminutive Ip, who
ran a little track and played volleyball and basketball in elementary and high
school and now is on the badminton team at Langara College, calls herself “a
sports person.” She’s played Ultimate for three years, including a year with
the Under-17 provincial team.
Her interest was piqued
by the RBC Training Ground ad, in which a girl dashes out of her front door and
sprints after her missed school bus as an announcer asks: “Have you ever
wondered if one day, you could become an Olympian … and compete on the world’s
biggest stage?”
Ip become even more
intrigued after learning 10 athletes from each of the four events will be
eligible for financial assistance, coaching and mentorship to continue their
training.
One athlete from each of
the four cities will also be sent to Rio de Janeiro to attend the Summer Games.
They’ll get the chance to watch how Canada’s top athletes prepare for their
lifetime moments.
“I didn’t really think
about being an Olympic athlete from the ad, I can’t really dream that far,” Ip
says. “But I’m pretty athletic and I’d like to know more about the whole
process of getting to be an Olympic athlete.
“And what intrigued me
the most,” she says with a laugh, “was that trip.”
A bigger pool
Officials admit it’s an
enticing carrot, as is the potential profile gained by CBC’s plans to create
three- and five-minute vignettes on the more promising athletes. Those
vignettes will be aired as part of the CBC’s Road to the Olympic Games coverage
and put up on the RBC Training Ground website.
“It’s an incentive, a
real incentive,” says Kurt Innes, the director of talent development for the
Canadian Sport Institute Pacific and a man heavily involved in putting together
the Training Ground program. “It would be foolish to think it’s not important
to put that out there.
“But that’s one short-term
incentive. We’re looking for a long-term commitment, to find people who have
what it takes from a physical and mental perspective because it is a long road.
“At the same time, it’s
going to be pretty cool for the best on the day to receive that prize. If
somebody goes to Rio and they see the Olympics as really exciting and they want
to do this and they understand the years of preparation. It would be a great
story after the fact, that this is where the dream began, this is where it was
put in motion.”
Innes notes the Canadian
Sport Institute has been running smaller Podium Search programs in B.C. for the
last four years and various national sport federations have done work on
athlete identification.
All of it is designed to
increase the talent pool, something critically important in a country such as
Canada.
“We don’t have a deep
enough talent pool, certainly not when we’re competing against countries like
China and the U.S., who have hundreds times the population.”
The Training Group
concept, for which the participating parties signed a five-year commitment,
looks like it should help. There were more than 200 applicants for today’s
event and an amazing 350 for the Toronto session.
The sports represented
today include athletics, women’s rugby sevens, canoe/kayak, rowing, cycling and
bobsleigh/skeleton.
Innes says the testing
for speed, power, strength and endurance “are basic characteristics that
underpin all those sports.”
“How fast they can run,
how high they can jump, all the sports have their basic benchmarks. If athletes
can come in and meet the minimal benchmarks, they’ll move into the assessment
phase with that sport.”
Finding the right fit
Bobsleigh Canada has
been one of the successful Canadian federations in taking athletes from other
sports and turning them into successful sliders. Canada’s No. 1 male driver,
Justin Kripps of Summerland, was a track athlete at SFU, while Jesse Lumsden
and Samuel Giguere (football) and Alex Kopacz (shot put) have become top
calibre brakemen.
Running back Brandon Deschamps,
who completed his UBC career with a Vanier Cup title last year, will be at
today’s event.
The 23-year-old Prince
George native, who will go to training camp in late spring with the CFL’s
Saskatchewan Roughriders, admits football is his top priority right now, but
says he “fell in love” with bobsled while watching the 2010 Olympics on
television.
“I said then that if I
had a chance to pursue that in any way, I’d take a shot,” says Deschamps, who
played hockey and soccer and skied while growing up. “My plan is to play
football and I want to see how well I can do, but I like to compete. I think
that’s one of the fundamental qualities of athletes, that desire to compete.
“If it’s not football or
bobsleigh, I’m open to something else. This is a chance to just get my name out
there.”
While Deschamps will be
one of the older athletes at the event, one of the youngest will be 14-year-old
Hannah Nunn of Cardston, Alta.
“I saw the TV
commercial,” says the ninth grader. “I didn’t really think any of it, but my dad
said, ‘Hannah, you should look at that.’”
The daughter of a former
rodeo cowboy, Hannah has run some track in school and plays basketball. She has
also competed in rodeo for six years.
“I rope and goat-tie.”
Between the running,
roping and her chores on the family ranch, Nunn says “I’m in pretty good
condition. And living on the ranch is pretty good for building strength.”
Her mom flew into
Vancouver with her on Friday night and she’s keen to see if she’s got what it
takes to be directed into an Olympic sport.
“It’s so hard and you
have to dedicate your whole life to it. But I want to see where I kind of stand
among everyone else and hopefully learn from the people around me.”
Road to Olympics begins in the Lower
Mainland for young athletes
CTV Vancouver
Published Saturday, February 20, 2016 3:37PM PST
Last Updated Sunday, February 21, 2016 5:54PM PST
Athletes around the world are in their final
stages of training and qualification for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio
De Janeiro, Brazil - but in Richmond, B.C. a group of athletes gathered
Saturday to set their sights on a different competition.
“My goal is 2020 Tokyo,” said Matthew Kehler, a
17-year-old sprint kayaker from Maple Ridge.
Kehler was one of 100 young athletes between the
ages of 14 to 25 invited to participate in the first of four “RBC Training
Ground” events that hope to identify some of Canada’s best young athletes and
begin grooming them for future Olympic competition.
The goal of the program, according to RBC
spokesman Matt McGlynn, is to identify “crossover athletes,” who may have
reached their peak in popular team sports like hockey or soccer, but have the
physical gifts to compete in other sports.
One such athlete is Hanna Nunn, who flew in with
her mother from their hometown of Cardston, Alta., on Friday night.
“It's a once in a lifetime experience,” Nunn’s
mother Kaylynn said when asked the motivation for making the journey. Nunn’s
sports are rodeo and basketball, but she’s not sure what Olympic sport she’d be
best suited for.
“Track and field would be my number one choice,”
she said. “And then bobsledding or something like that.
As for Kehler, he said he’s happy in kayaking,
but still curious what other opportunities might present themselves. If it
meant a trip to the Olympics, he says he’d definitely be willing to switch
sports.
“I’m here just to try and see what I’m compared to
and see if there are any other sports for me,” Kehler said. “It would be
probably one of the greatest feelings and accomplishments of my life, being an
Olympian.”
At the end of the day, the top 10 athletes were
singled out for recognition. Kieanna Stephens of Surrey won the top prize of
funding for the duration of her athletic career. The hockey player has been
told she may want to consider taking up rowing as well.
“I can’t even process it right now, I can’t
believe it’s happening,” Stephens said. “It’s amazing… the more sports the
better I guess.”
For other young Canadians dreaming of such an
accomplishment, three more Training Ground events are planned - for Montreal,
Toronto, and Halifax.
