As Olympic athletes gear up for Paris, Winnipeg’s youth are chasing their own Olympic dreams for 2028 and beyond.
Over 130 elite athletes aged 14 to 25 made their way to the RBC training grounds, where scouts waited to find top talent.
Winnipeg’s own Skylar Park is an Olympic Taekwondo athlete, and one of the scouts at this years event.
“For myself, I have that same passion within me and to see these athletes come in super excited just to have the opportunity to showcase their skills and hopefully make the Olympic games one day is super exciting and inspiring,” Park said.
Park will be competing in this year’s Olympic games where she will go for gold in taekwondo.
Scouts are evaluating athletes strength, speed and endurance to find out where they might fit on the team.
“It’s great for athletes who have great abilities and Olympic dreams, but don’t really know what sport they fit into,” Park explained.
Carter Heroux is a 15 -year-old track and field athlete showcasing his skills at the event. And while the Olympics might be on his mind, he says he’s got to get through high school track first.
“It would be great, it would be a lot of fun,” Heroux said as he described potentially training with Olympic athletes. “Next year is grade 11 so gotta race against the big boys.”
If Canada’s future athletes impress, they can go on to get more training and funding as they work toward future games.
For athletes already making a name for themselves, the camp is a chance to try a sport they haven’t considered yet.
“The sports will then invite their top list over to a training camp where they’ll do their own sport-specific testing,” Jermie Chase, the RBC Training Ground technical lead said. “This format allows us to reach a big number of athletes very efficiently, very quickly.”
The 2024 Paris Olympic Games kick off on July 26.