OLDS — Eleven members of the Inspire Baton Club in Olds will be competing in the 2020 Pan Pacific championships, which will be held Jan. 17-19 in Red Deer.
More than 200 athletes from Canada, Japan, Australia and the U.S. will be attending, including 60 from Alberta.
Athletes will be competing in two divisions: open and elite.
The event will feature individual events in solo, two-baton, three-baton, artistic twirl, artistic pair categories. There will also be a team competition.
The age categories are 9-11, 12-14,15-17 and adult.
Jenna Jemieff, who owns the Inspire Dance Studio and Baton Club, says the Olds athletes will be competing in all individual events.
Jemieff says the Olds kids will face more than 36 athletes in their categories, so it’ll be a challenge.
“All of our athletes will be in the open division, so our expectation going into this competition is just have a really great experience and for them to do their personal best,” she says.
Jemieff says exposure to that kind of competition will be “a huge learning experience” for the local kids.
She notes a lot of them got a taste of big-time competition when they participated in the Twirl Mania International Championships at Walt Disney World in Florida last February.
“That I think was really great exposure to them of what it takes to compete at that level at competition.
“So a lot of those kids are really motivated to improve and challenge themselves even more to attend the Pan Pacific Championships to see where they level up against the rest of the kids across those four countries,” she said.
