The Sporting Life: Sask Summer Games a mini Olympics for young athletes
Amid the excitement of a summer event that happens once every four years, another Athletes’ Village is awash in competition, medals and of course talk of the Olympics – this year in Paris.
For 12-year-old Ryker Slabaida of North Battleford, her experience playing on the Rivers West U13 softball team at the Saskatchewan Summer Games was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
“I feel like I played really good this weekend and the experience was really, really fun and I met a lot of new friends,” she said.
Roughly 1,500 athletes, over 300 coaches, managers and 1,000 volunteers made their way to the sporting village in Lloydminster to compete in 14 different disciplines from swimming, softball and archery to basketball, soccer and special Olympics Bocce. The week-long event that mirrors its larger counterpart is broken up into two sections of competition to ensure the village could accommodate everyone comfortably.