Special Olympians ready for nationals

Jordan Pretchuk had a blast at last year’s Ontario Special Olympic Games, and he’s even more excited to take part in this year’s national competition in St. Albert, Alta.

The Thunder Bay curler is treading in unchartered waters, joining seven other athletes from the city at the Games, which are scheduled to begin on Feb. 28.

“It’s my first time going to nationals. It’s good. I’m happy, it’s excitement, you know,” he said. “We’ve been practicing a lot every Sunday.”

Though winning isn’t everything at the competition, that doesn’t mean Pretchuk isn’t thinking about standing on the podium when all is said and done on March 3.

“I hope we win the gold medal,” he said. “If we win the gold medal we go to the worlds and the worlds are in Korea, I heard.”

Fellow curlers David Heise, Paul Luomala, Janice Martinsen and Rachel Warren will join Pretchuk in St. Albert, as will snowshoers Thomas Boyes and Patricia Newman and alpine skier Amy Cizmar.

Regionally William Hanlon (snowshoeing) and Joshua Wiens (Nordic skiing) of Atikokan and Terrace Bay’s Shannon Moquin (snowshoeing), will be part of the Northwestern Ontario Special Olympics contingent.

Ashleigh Quarrell, the public relations and marketing co-ordinator for Special Olympics Thunder Bay said the organization is excited and proud to be sending so many athletes as part of Team Ontario to the national Games.

“I know they’ve all been training hard over the last several months, once they found out they were going to be going down there,” Quarrell said. “They’ve been right in the thick of things with their training and they’re getting very well prepared for their competition next week.”

The team is making the trek thanks in part to sponsors like the Thunder Bay Police and Children’s Aid Society, who contributed $2,000 apiece to the more than $20,000 the organization collected to send the athletes west.

Of the money raised, $1,000 per athlete was needed to fund the trip; the remainder of the money will be used for local sports programming.

“Our community comes together so wonderfully when it comes to fundraising campaigns for various charities and we are very happy to have been able to accept donations for Special Olympics Thunder Bay to be able to send these athletes to nationals,” Quarrell said.