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Clarke eyes spot at 2022 Winter Olympics

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Most people like to keep their skeletons in the closet, but 17-year-old Belleville native Hallie Clarke prefers hers hurtling down a frozen track in excess of 140 km/h and it might just be her ticket to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

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Skeleton is a Winter Olympics sport that dates back to the 1880s. Events take place on a track made of ice. Skeleton athletes push sleds as fast as they can, then jump on and speed head first down the track, using minor shifts in body weight to steer.

After capturing the 2020 Alberta provincial skeleton championship, Clarke is working diligently to become a member of Canada’s national team and earn a spot representing the country in China in February, 2022.

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She stumbled upon the sport by sheer coincidence. After several moves around North America for her father Wayne’s job in the food industry, the family ended up in Calgary in 2018 and soon the young athlete noticed a Learn to Push sign, advertising the sport of skeleton.

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Soon she was making the trip regularly to the Icehouse at Canadian Olympic Village in the city to hone her pushing skills.

“I thought this looks really cool and I should give it a try — I didn’t even know what skeleton was when I saw that sign,” she said. “I grew up figure skating and when we lived in Boston I played lacrosse, but I’m always looking a new things and skeleton looked interesting to say the least.”

After three months of training, she finally got the opportunity to go down the course — starting at the midway point — and the results might have sent the faint of heart scurrying for a new endeavour to try.

“I crashed the very first time I went and I thought, if I don’t get right back up there and do this again, I might never do it,” she recalled with a laugh. “It went much better and I had so much fun and I didn’t want to stop.”

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With her father back in the Brighton area, Hallie and her mother Kelly — a skating coach — have remained in Calgary to see her Olympic dream through.

In 2020, she travelled to St. Moritz, Switzerland for the Youth Olympic Games and slid to a 12th-place finish. Leading up to the Youth Olympics, she won an OMEGA series event in Park City, Utah and a couple of second place finished at Lake Placid.

“I absolutely love competing internationally and it’s a long shot, but I’d love to represent Canada in 2022. I’m really young — I’ve been the youngest competitor in Canada for the last three years, so I’ll still only be 21 in 2026 when the Games are in Milano Cortina (Italy),” she said.

While she’s busy working on her starts, Clarke is excited about the shift to Whistler in October to Canada’s only skeleton course.

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“It’s the fastest (track) in the world and it’s a great place to train,” she explained. “I can’t wait to get going again — there’s no there feeling like it.”

Last week Clarke was named as one of 55 up-and-coming Canadian athletes from both summer and winter sports selected by Petro-Canada, the Canadian Olympic Committee, Canadian Paralympic Committee and the Coaching Association of Canada to receive Fuelling Athletes and Coaching Excellence (FACE) Program grant.

The program supports up-and-coming athletes when they need it most: when they are striving to represent Canada at the Olympic or Paralympic Games, but don’t yet qualify for full government funding. Recipients are selected based on potential. The funding is courtesy of Petro-Canada.

The athletes and their coaches are awarded $10,000 ($5,000 directly to the athlete and $5,000 to their coach) to help with things athlete families often have to pay out-of-pocket, like equipment and competition travel expenses.

Hundreds of Past recipients have gone on to win medals for Canada at recent Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Clarke said the recent Summer Olympics have only fuelled her dreams.

“All the compelling stories and watching them compete under so much pressure — that’s exactly what I want to do,” she said.

 

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