Honour Roll
Taryn O’Neill
The Okanagan Valley’s Taryn O’Neill is one of Canada’s top junior middle-distance and cross-country runners. She enjoys a diverse recreational lifestyle, but also has her eyes on a career in medicine.
O’Neill hails from one of those recreational hubs where year round there is a high level of physical activit y, as the Okanagan offers a diverse culture of recreation with its long, warm summers, mild winters and an environment that is conducive to play.
When asked about her activity outside of running she said, “In the winter I cross-country ski for a bit of cross-training and I downhill ski.” O’Neill also regularly ventures out into the wilderness on backcountry ski trips. “I’ve always loved mountaineering and climbing, as I grew up in the mountains, but I haven’t had much of a chance to get into that yet,” she said. “I play basketball and soccer as well, but just for fun at a very low level. I love lots of other sports but running remains number one.”
O’Neill, a Grade 11 student enrolled in George Elliot Secondary, lives in the town of Winfield (population 12,000), which is located on Okanagan Lake, 19 kilometres north of Kelowna in an incorporated area known as Lake Country.
“It’s pretty diverse when it comes to trail running, for most people there’s trail right out the back door. The coaching community is obviously great too,” O’Neill pointed out. O’Neill is coached by former Canadian middledistance runner Malindi Elmore. Elmore twice competed i n the iaaf World Cross-Country Championships, as well as the 2004 Athens Olympics in the 1,500m. O’Neill won the junior B.C. High School Championships in the 1,500m, while placing third in the 800m. Additionally, she has performed well in the steeplechase finishing fourth at the national Legion track meet. Next year, she is hopes to attain a scholarship to compete for a university, but hasn’t looked into the specifics just yet. She is an “A” student who enjoys the sciences. “My favourite is biology,” said the 16-year-old. “I want to be a surgeon when I finish school. But I’m also in art class just for fun. And I play alto sax in the school band.” Asked about her favourite discipline i n running, she said, “cross-country is my favourite, by far. I like the variation and how unpredictable it is. Also, the cold and rain is my favourite weather to run in.” True to her word, after finishing third in the 2015 B.C. High School Championships she said, “I love running in the rain. We don’t get a lot of it in the Okanagan. It was muddy and slippery, which was a lot of fun.”– CK