The pride of Clandeboye, Man., is not coming home from Poland empty-handed.
Speedskater Alexa Scott captured the women’s overall bronze medal Saturday at the world junior long-track championships in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, an hour outside of Warsaw.
The last Canadian female athlete to reach the podium at the competition was Justine L’Heroux of Quebec in 2008.
Scott joins Manitoba speedskating legends Sylvia Burka, Liz Appleby and Shannon Rempel as only the fourth woman from the province to win a world junior overall medal in long-track speed skating.
The 18-year-old phenom had to come from “back in the pack” after fifth- and eighth-place finishes in the 500-metre and 1,500-metre events, respectively, at the start of the weekend. Scott closed the gap and cracked the top three with career-best fourth- and 10-place finishes in the 1,000-metre and 3,000-metre races.
“Overall, I had a tough weekend, I had to persevere through some stuff, but it was a good achievement at the end of a hard weekend,” Scott said in a news release. “I got close to the podium in the 1000m, I was just off of it, that was a little disappointing, but I did what I had to do to get to third place in the Allround, so I’m pretty happy.”
Scott finished fifth at last year’s championships and 18th in 2018.
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