Female Olympians inspire Femsport competitors
It may not be Rio, but on Saturday Meredith Anderson was inspired by Canada’s female Olympians all the same at the Femsport competition in Regina.
“I just think that (the Olympics are) super inspiring for us to watch that and see how capable we are of achieving that kind of greatness,” Anderson said.
Anderson is from St. Benedict near Humboldt, and she travelled to compete in the women’s fitness competition with her two teammates. The girls spent the last year training for it.
“It’s just been a great way for us to continue to work on our goals throughout the fall, winter, spring months and keep us really focused on having an end thing to celebrate all of our journey, the last year of continuing to work on our health and fitness goals,” she said.
Anderson was looking toward Canada’s Olympians for inspiration in the last few weeks leading up to the Femsport competition. Women have been dominating in the Olympic medal count for Canada, having won 16 of the 22 medals in Rio de Janeiro.
“It’s great to see that the women can keep up if not even exceed the men in that regard,” Anderson said. “I’m not surprised by that because women are strong and totally capable, so I think it’s great.”
Femsport is a national company that travels across Canada holding competitions each year. It was in Regina in 2014 but had to skip last year due to low levels of interest. On Saturday 40 women descended upon the parking lot at Gold’s Gym East to compete in various strength competitions, including pushing cars and lifting kettlebells.
“It’s an all-female competition empowering women of all shapes and sizes and all talents in fitness competitions that they can do in their backyard or with a trainer,” said Nancy Lockington, owner of Femsport.
The Canadian women’s Olympic showing played in perfectly with the competition, helping to inspire competitors.
“I think the women in the Olympics or any of our Olympians come in all shapes and sizes and all different talents,” Lockington said. “So finding what you’re good at and making it happen for who you are, then you’re going to be healthy from within and it shows on the outside.”
Many of the women competing were feeling inspired by the Olympians.
“It’s nice to see women getting a lot of attention and showing our capabilities and abilities in sports,” said Tricia Yeres.
Yeres travelled to compete from Oak Bluff, Man., with her team. She had done obstacle courses in the past and thought that the Femsport competition sounded interesting.
“We just thought we wanted to try something a little bit different. This sounded interesting and thought it would be a good road trip to try to do something to compete in,” she said.
Across the board, we’re very frustrated. But it’s one of those things where we’ve got to take all that focus ... and think about Edmonton. RIDERS CENTRE DAN CLARK