An Okotoks gymnastics duo made good on its first major competition.
Mountain Shadows gymnasts Charice Ling and Emily Duncan combined to win seven medals, including team and individual podium finishes, at the 2024 Alberta Winter Games, held Feb. 16-19 in Grande Prairie.
“They were ready to go and they showed that on their team event which put them into event finals and everything the following day,” said Mountain Shadows and Zone 2 coach Jen Krause. “They were big leaders for that Zone 2 team and they made some great friends and that’s nice because this is an individual sport for the most part.
“It’s the only team event they’ve ever done and hopefully they get to experience it again at higher levels. For this age group, it’s their mini-Olympics.”
Ling earned a medal of every colour at the Games.
Individually, she won gold in the J07 all around, vault and floor along with bronze in the beam.
She was part of the J07 all around team silver medal squad.
“I put my blood, sweat and tears into this Winter Games and when I stood on the podium I was just so grateful,” said Ling, adding the all around medal meant the most. “I have all these amazing people supporting me, especially coach Jen (Krause) and Mr. M (Jim McLuskey), they helped me through such hard times.”
Duncan, from Okotoks, won silver in the J06 all around team event along with bronze in the all-around, encompassing the scores from bars, beam, floor and vault.
Her top event was the beam, where she was fifth.
“It felt so amazing and I was just so happy in the moment, it was incredible.” she said of the all around medal. “(My beam) series worked so that was really nice and it was just a level that I felt strong in. I felt like I had a team behind me and I wanted to do it for my team.”
In archery, Turner Valley’s Brookelynn Robinson zeroed in on a gold medal performance, topping the field in the U17 recurve female competition.
Okotoks’ Emilee Hayhurst won two silver in archery in mixed compound team and U17 compound female.
Taressa Pardo also aimed her way into a podium finish with a bronze medal in the U15 recurve female event.
DeWinton gymnast Kathalina Dube captured a pair of podium finishes in Grande Prairie.
Dube, who competed in four individual events, earned silver in J06 all around team and bronze in the floor competition.
In female hockey, the Okotoks-based Rocky Mountain U13 AA Raiders finished off a dramatic 1-0 victory over Central Alberta in a shootout to skate away with the bronze.
The Raiders feature 10 players from Okotoks — Ally Hallam, Aubrey Mannix-Gear, Brooklynn Saboe, Callie Kalmakoff, Chelsea Arsenault, Elliott Hefferan, Heidi Eckberg, Isabelle Nicolle, Jewels Kerr and Westyn Webb — Lacey Hill from Foothills, Sterling Christman from Diamond Valley, Molli Radford from Strathmore, Taylor Markert from Vulcan, Jane Loree from Nanton and Amarah Mateshaytis, Emma Sawin and Lily Redmond from Chestermere.
In the boys hockey competition, Zone 2 just missed out on the podium.
The Okotoks U15 AA Oilers, the Zone representatives, finished fourth in Grande Prairie.
The team had a 3-0 record in round-robin and was edged 6-5 by Zone 8 in the bronze medal match.
All told, 51 athletes represented Okotoks, DeWinton and Turner Valley at the Games.
Zone 2 finished in third place in the medal standings with 28 gold, 25 silver and 32 bronze.
For more information, go to 2024awg.com
