It pays to have a well-versed athletic background.
Growing up as a multi-sport athlete paid dividends for Okotokian and Foothills Lions rugby standout Ian MacNeil who moved onto the RBC Training Ground regional finals in Calgary amongst a crop of 540 competitors from four local qualifiers held across the province.
“I’ve played lots of sports. Earlier in elementary I played competitive hockey, basketball and did a bit of competitive snowboarding too,” said MacNeil, a Grade 12 student at Holy Trinity Academy. “Just doing all of those sports really gave me the ability to run long distances and with the rugby lately I’ve been able to be better at the sprinting.”
The variety of athletes on display at the Okotoks qualifying event, held at the Crescent Point Field House on April 1, vying for Olympic Games potential was something to behold.
From biathletes, to rowers to former Washington State football players in their mid 20s, it was a well versed group competing to move on.
“They tried to keep us relaxed when we were warming up,” MacNeil said. “I hadn’t really done anything like this and didn’t really know what to expect. When I got there, I didn’t really realize all the type of kids who would have been trying out.”
MacNeil, who plays rugby for the Knights senior team as well as the Lions Junior Academy, found the speed, endurance and jumping events to be his strengths.
“Our coach for rugby Jim Ryan keeps us in shape pretty well,” MacNeil said. “With the academy with the Foothills Lions during the winter we go into the field house and for an hour and a half we do endurance and the other hour and half we do drills. We do that two, three times a week during the winter.”
The athletes at the training ground qualifier were tested in 10, 30 and 40m sprints, in a stationary jump, a stationary deadlift and closed out the event with the gruelling beep test to measure endurance.
MacNeil was a top 11 finisher in all three sprinting events, tied for eleventh in the beep test and surprised himself with a top-20 finish in the jump.
“The beep test was probably my best one and the 40m dash,” he said. “The standing jump test, compared to all my other friends and the people in my group, I seemed to have a better vertical. I never really noticed, but I think playing basketball and volleyball really helped that.”
The top 100 athletes from around the province descend upon the RBC Training Ground regional final on May 6 at Calgary’s WinSport. The top athlete at each of the five regionals held nationwide will win the right to attend the Olympic Games. Up to 40 of the top finishers will earn athletic funding to pursue potential goals within the Olympic realm.
Out of the Okotoks qualifier 38 athletes earned the right to move on to regional finals including hockey players Rachel Weiss, Taylor Hinton-Turik, gymnast Callie Zacharias, long distance runner Rosie Bouchard and soccer player Olivia Kranjcec.
Armed with the knowledge of what to expect in testing, MacNeil plans to train specifically for each of the four events.
“I hope I can keep the same calm, subtle intensity I had through the first round,” he said. “I think I’m going to have my approach pretty down set. I have some of an idea for what to expect for this one so hopefully I do well.”
