An Okotoks athlete was the last man standing at a provincial championship last week.
Rylan Slapman, a member of the Okotoks Da Feet competitive skipping team, completed more than 250 consecutive double-unders at the Alberta Skipping Championships in Grimshaw on May 7.
A double-under is when the skipper completes two jumps in one rotation. The provincial championship had Slapman lined up with 10 other skippers. The skippers would sit down when they missed their first double-under.
“I did 263 in a row,” the Grade 7 student at St. John Paul II Collegiate said. “I couldn’t believe it. I watched people go down beside me. When I saw the last guy go down, I thought. ‘I’m the last one up.’”
Slapman hoped to go the full three minutes without failure, but missed at about the 2:30 mark.
Slapman finished fifth overall in the 13-14 year-old boys division.
The competition consists of four disciplines — fastest in 30 seconds, three-minute endurance, the double-unders and routine.
He finished in the top eight in all categories. His fifth-place overall means he qualifies for the national championships in Olds this weekend.
Slapman will have some company.
His younger brother Teagan and McKenzie Reid also qualified for Nationals.
Reid, a Grade 6 student at St. Mary’s School, was the fastest of the three Okotoks skippers in the 30-second speed.
“My record is 65 and I did 63 in Grimshaw,” she said.
“In the three-minute I did 317. My legs and my arms were just numb afterwards.”
Reid has gone beyond the ‘Cinderella dressed in yella,’ phase of skipping she did as young girl.
“This is more competitive,” she said.
“I’m probably best at routines. I do a lot of tricks – double-under 360s, push-ups, cartwheels and round-offs.”
All of it done while skipping rope.
She finished eighth overall out of 33 skippers in the youth 11-12 female division.
Eleven-year-old Teagan was fifth overall in 11-12 boys division to qualify for nationals.
“My favourite is speed at provincials I got 49 in 30 seconds, but my record is 67,” he said.
He was able to skip 294 times in three minutes at provincials.
Teagan said his goal is to improve at provincials.
Da Feet has three members and is the competitive aspect of the Okotoks Skipping Club.
There are 38 members in the club, which calls its recreational component The Happy Feet.
“I’m three for three this year going to nationals,” Da Feet coach Renee Adams said with a laugh.
This is the first year Da Feet is sending athletes to nationals.
Rylan and Reid qualified for nationals last year but did not go because they were in Nova Scotia.
Coach Adams, however, went to nationals while growing up in Provost, where she was a skipper with the Provost Hot Peppers.
