CARSTAIRS - Rebecca Nielsen, a 17-year-old Grade 12 Hugh Sutherland School athlete, says participating as a finalist in the RBC Training Ground Canadian Olympic committee annual athletic talent search program on Oct. 22 was both rewarding and very challenging.
“I worked as hard as I possibly could and that’s what matters,” said Nielsen. “It went well. It was an exciting weekend and I got to meet a lot of cool people and I think the testing went well.”
More than 1,500 athletes from a wide range of sports took part in free qualifier events in recent months, showing off their talents through speed, strength, power and endurance tests. The tests were overseen by Olympic talent scouts.
The top 100 athletes, including Nielsen, made it to the RBC Training Ground national finals in the capital.
Nielsen is primarily a long distance runner and basketball player, but is now focusing on track cycling.
During the finals in Ottawa, the athletes were tested for four different aspects – speed, power, strength and endurance – against sport specific high performance benchmarks under supervision of program sports partners.
“I did some watt-bike testing, which is to see how much power you can put out,” she said. “For the endurance test we did an assault bike, which uses both arms and legs for power.
“Also for power we did broad jump testing, and then for speed we did 40-metre sprint. For strength we did an isometric mid-thigh pole, which is essentially how much you can lift and how long you can maintain that for a period of time.”
Asked what event challenged her the most, Nielsen said the assault bike was the toughest.
“The assault bike was definitely a challenge,” she said. “That was very difficult and pushed me right to my limit. You have to keep up a certain RPM (revolutions per minute) and they actually continuously increase the RPM over a few minutes and you go until you basically can’t hold that RPM anymore. It’s a really hard one.”
There were a lot of good opportunities for the athletes to meet with Olympians “which was very cool,” she said. “Overall it was a great experience.”
The top 30 athletes at the finals will earn funding, a spot on Team Canada and an accelerated path to the Olympic Games. The winners will be announced on a live TSN broadcast on Dec. 5.
For her part Nielsen says she expects to actually hear the results sometime later this month.
Asked if she thinks she made it to the top 30, she said, “I’m not sure. When I was talking to some of the other people it seemed like I was in the higher end of the group but I really don’t have any idea. I’m very happy with how I did.”
The RBC Training Ground program is now in its seventh year. So far, more than 12,000 athletes have been tested through the program, with 1,600 being identified as having Olympic potential.
Program graduates have won a total of seven Olympic medals to date.
An athlete since childhood, Nielsen says she plans to pursue a career in nursing after high school.
