Talent identification took on new heights in the Foothills on Saturday.
The Crescent Point Field House played host to the RBC Training Ground talent combine with 11 national sport organizations on hand to measure speed, endurance, strength and power with young athletes competing for a shot at regionals, athletic funding and a trip to take in the Olympic Games.
“Ultimately you don’t know until you try,” said RBC Olympian and skeleton athlete Cassie Hawrysh. “I would have never achieved anything in my athletic career had I said no to the possibility of maybe not being as good, but being able to say ‘you know what, I’m going to see where this takes me.’
“I’m a firm believer in a multi-sport athlete, not just because of my experience, but because I see it working.”
Hawrysh grew up in volleyball and later transitioned to track and field where she was a four-time all-Canadian as a University of Regina Cougar in relay racing and heptathlon. A few chance encounters later and she found herself as an alternate in skeleton for Team Canada at the 2014 Olympic Games.
It’s a trajectory that would not have been forecasted.
The training ground seeks to connect those developing athletes with sports which suit their attributes.
The event had athletes perform a sprint, showcase leaping ability, demonstrate strength with a deadlift and complete the testing with the gruelling beep test.
“The metrics are tough. You can’t just go we want to test this for rowing, test this for jumping, instead we wanted to be able to find four tests that could give us some baselines,” Hawrysh said. “And the national sport organizations (NSO) then have the metrics they are looking at. It’s individual for each sport.
“Power, strength, speed and endurance. It will give a broad overview for these athletes to demonstrate in one area, in four areas what they’re super good at.”
Those who meet the metrics each NSO is looking at are contacted with the potential to be invited to compete in the regional final in Calgary on May 6. From there, one athlete from each of the five regionals across the country will win the right to attend the Olympic Games and up to 40 of the top finishers will earn athletic funding to fulfill potential Olympic goals.
Eleven NSO were represented at the field house including, Skeleton Canada and Athletics Canada.
Many of the Foothills’ top youth athletes – from Rocky Mountain Raiders hockey forward Rachel Weiss, to Mountain Shadows gymnast Callie Zacharias and Foothills Lions rugby standouts Thomas Isherwood and Caleb Labrenz – tested their mettle on Saturday.
Each athlete brought his or her own sporting background into the event.
For Okotoks brothers Pedro and Diego Pardo it was an eye-opening experience.
“I just came out for the experience,” said Diego, a Grade 9 student at Okotoks Junior High. “I’ve never done any big events like this before.”
Pedro, with a background in long distance running as Foothills’ top male cross-country athlete in 2016, and Diego, who plies his trade in the beautiful game, both found themselves among the top performers in the running events.
“I liked the beep test, that was my favourite. I’m not the best sprinter,” said Pedro, a Grade 12 student at the Comp. “My vertical is okay, but I’ve never actually done the deadlift before. That was kind of a learning experience.
“This kind of gives us a background of what I can do.”
Many of the athletes are surprised at the results they get from the event.
It’s been a source of motivation for those who’ve gone through the training ground experience.
“We’ve found a lot of athletes are really serious about this,” Hawrysh added. “They have a lot of benchmarks for themselves and the biggest comments we get are they’re either really excited with how it went or they’re really frustrated about one event.”
The beep test — the standard for endurance at training ground events — is often the Achilles’ heel and something of a wake-up-call for top performers.
“We always tell them it’s not about one event, or all four, it’s about coming out here, doing what you can do and seeing how the chips fall,” Hawrysh said. “There is a lot of unknowns when they walk through the doors, but then there is a lot of calmness after.
“If you’re in the range of 14 to 25 you can potentially come back next year and essentially test against yourself and get those metrics up.”
For more information go to rbctrainingground.ca
