MULTI-SPORT – At the Special Olympics Canada Summer Games in Medicine Hat, 5 local athletes represented Team Alberta.
In golf, Brendon Mercier earned Gold and Doug Edey brought home the Silver.
In swimming, Sarah Shinn earned Silver in Freestyle and Bronze in the Team Relay.
In 10 Pin Bowling, Chris McKee won Gold & Bronze as well as 4th All Around Overall. Nicole Wasylchew brought home Gold in Doubles and 4th All Around Overall.
SWIMMING – 𝗢𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗗𝗮𝘄𝘀𝗼𝗻 won a Bronze Medal at the Pan Pacifics Swimming Championships in California in the 4 x 100m Mixed Medley Relay with Ingrid Wilm, Taylor Ruck and Finlay Knox. They finished behind the United States and Australia. Team Canada’s other team (Tierney, LePage, Harvey, Gaziev) finished fourth.
It’s another new Canadian Swimming record for Oliver Dawson, beating his previous record by 0.01 seconds which he set at the Commonwealth Games. He swam the 50m Men’s Breaststroke in 27.28 seconds, good for 3rd in the B Final. He narrowly missed the A Final by less than 0.2 seconds.
In the 200m Men’s Breaststroke – A Final, Dawson finished in 7th place. Australia’s Zac Stubblety-Cook won Gold. At the Commonwealth Games in July, Dawson made it to wall faster in this distance earning a Silver medal, just ahead of Stubblety-Cook’s Bronze.
Dawson finished 6th in the 100m Men’s Breaststroke – A Final with a 59.85, consistently finishing in under a minute. Only three other men in Canada have ever done so; Scott Dickens (2012), Richard Funk (2017) and Individual Medley specialist Finlay Knox (2024). Oliver set the record with a time of 59.33 at the Commonwealth Games.
Team Canada had two teams racing in the 4 x 100m Men’s Medley Relay, finishing 6th and 7th. (Blake Tierney, Oliver Dawson, Finlay Knox, Ruslan Gaziev 3:34.08) (Ekk, Hess, Dommann, Kim 3:36.57)
Eighteen year old Oliver Dawson qualified for the Team Canada PanPacs roster after sweeping the top of the podium for all three men’s breaststroke events at the 2026 Bell Canadian Swimming Trials in Montreal (50m, 100m, 200m).
After spending his youth training under Coach Alex Dawson with the Grande Prairie Piranhas, Oliver Dawson is off to swim with the Hoosiers at Indiana University.
TRACK & FIELD – 𝗘𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝗯𝗲𝘁𝗵 𝗠𝗰𝗟𝗲𝗼𝗱 raced to the podium at the Legion National Youth Track & Field Championships.
Silver Medal – U16 Female 200m Hurdles (27.82 seconds finishing 0.02 seconds behind the Gold Medal winner).
Bronze Medal – U16 Female 80m Hurdles (11.82 seconds)
The last time a local athlete earned two medals in athletics at Youth Nationals was 25 years ago, earned by Jenna Huber (1500m & 3000m), confirmed by former longtime local running coach Bill Corcoran. Jenna also won Junior Canadian National titles and went on to compete at the University of Nevada in Reno.
At the Alberta Summer Games Elizabeth set multiple personal bests, while earning 2 Gold, 1 Silver & 1 Bronze.
Gold – 15U Female 80m Hurdles (11.91 seconds but was not eligible for a record due to the wind)
Gold – 15U Female 200m Hurdles (28.79 seconds), finishing a tenth of a second off the Games record.
Silver – 15U Female 200m (25.75 seconds)
Bronze – 15U Female 4 x 100m Relay with Heidi Potosky, Lily Perrin & Preslyn McAllister
At the Zone 8 Championships, 14 year old Elizabeth set three meet records in the Female U16 200m (26.7 seconds), Female U16 100m (12.6 seconds) and Female U16 80m Hurdles (13.5 seconds).
To see more local athletes, coaches and officials representing the Grande Prairie region, check out the Highlight Reel in past blogs.
If you have a provincial, national or international sport championship or accomplishment, share it with us.
Send pictures and details by the 20th of the month to info@gpsportconnect.ca.