Special Olympics Canada logo. Photo Credit: Special Olympics Canada twitter

By Shane Clausing

Special Olympics GP

Grande Prairie athletes to represent Alberta at Special Olympics National Winter Games

Feb 19, 2020 | 2:17 PM

Seven athletes and one coach from Grande Prairie will be representing Alberta at the Special Olympics National Winter Games in Thunder Bay next week.

The games take place from February 25 – February 29 and feature athletes from across the country.

“We attended the Alberta Winter Provincial Games last February. Through that, all of our winter sports were qualified, and we had some of our athletes who did well enough to be picked up by Team Alberta to go to the national games,” said Kelly Hollahan from Special Olympics Grande Prairie.

Steve Grandejambe, Tricia Cramer, Desiree Rehm and Coach Cathy Withers will represent Grande Prairie in the 5-Pin Bowling event, they’ll be joined by two athletes from Edmonton. It marks the second year in a row that Grande Prairie has sent a 5-Pin team to the games.

Nikki King will represent the City and Province in Snowshoeing. She’s originally from Newfoundland, but now lives in Grande Prairie, and has competed at the games before.

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Floor Hockey players Darren Pedersen, Darryl Loutitt and Brendon Mercier will join Team Alberta at the games. They were rewarded spots on the team for not only their player skills, but their sportsmanship and dedication as well.

“Our floor hockey team didn’t necessarily quite make it, but the Head Coach of the team that did make it for Team Alberta was looking to fill his roster and asked if he could invite three of our players. It was nice for our affiliate to get noticed that way that he hand-selected our athletes to fill up his roster for Team Alberta’s floor hockey team.”

The coaches and athletes will leave Grande Prairie on Sunday and travel to Edmonton to meet up with some of the athletes that are representing Team Alberta.

In a statement on their Facebook page, Grande Prairie Special Olympics said the following:

“As an affiliate, we are so proud of the effort, time and work put in by our athletes and their training coaches. Not only were there extra weekly training but there was travel to meet up with the head coaches of each sport as well as training camps in Calgary and Edmonton where our athletes had the opportunity to meet the other athletes on Team Alberta.”

They will fly to Thunder Bay on Monday. Updates on the athletes performances at the games can be found on the Grande Prairie Special Olympics Facebook page as it becomes available.