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Athletes from all over North America travelled to Saskatoon for the Knights of Columbus Games this weekend.
The annual invitational indoor track and field event at Saskatoon Field House welcomes competitors ranging from under-11s to seniors.
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One of those competitors was 17-year-old para athlete Ayva Delainey from Grayson Sask.
Delainey was born with spina bifida, a congenital condition that occurs when the spine and spinal cord don’t form properly.
She has been competing in wheelchair races for six years and said she was told about a number of different para sports.
“I heard of wheelchair racing and I thought that sounded really fun,” Delainey said. “My coaches asked me if I wanted to come try it, I said ‘yeah,’ and I really liked it.”
Delainey is one of the more prominent wheelchair racers in Saskatchewan and she hopes one day she can go to the Paralympics.
“It’s really cool that I’m that good,” said Delainey. “I hope to be able to go to the Paralympics one day.”
Delainey also wants to be able to help out younger wheelchair athletes as well.
“I want to teach them how it can be fun,” she said. “There’s one (younger para athlete) that … I think this is her second or third year and I’m trying to be a good role model and help her out.”
But it wasn’t only Canadian athletes at the games — Jill Marois travelled from the United States to compete in the invitational pole vault competition.
American pole vaulter Jill Marois. (Will Mandzuk/650CKOM)
Marois has been pole vaulting for 15 years and said it’s a very addicting sport.
“It’s one of those events where you’re just wanting the next bar, you’re wanting to figure it out,” said Marois. “I think I’m addicted to that so I’ll be here for a while.”
Marois played other sports like basketball and soccer growing up while also competing in other track and field events, but she said there was something about pole vaulting that kept bringing her back.
“The combination of that feeling of flight and the little tickle you get in your stomach when you’re falling,” she said. “And then the challenge of the event, it’s so technical, it’s so physics oriented.”
Marois has represented the United States in a few national competitions and also hopes to one day make her Olympic debut.
“(At the) U.S. trials I just missed the cusp both in 2021 and in 2024,” she said. “It’s easy to say (the) Olympics is the dream, it’s harder to do.”
Marois said it was discouraging just to miss out but it has motivated her even more to break through and represent her country on the Olympic stage.
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