Jamie Macdonald, a speed skater from Fort St. James, has earned a spot on the senior national short track team.
The 21-year-old Macdonald is one of 15 athletes on the team, which was announced by Speed Skating Canada late last week. She is the only B.C. member of the squad, which includes one Albertan (Sasha Fathoullin) and 13 skaters from Quebec.
The national team is anchored by Marianne St-Gelais and Charles Hamelin, both of whom were world champions in 2016.
Macdonald becomes the first northern B.C. skater to ever be named to Canada's short track team. In the 1990s, Debby Johnson of Fort St. John was a member of the long track team, and Fort St. John's Denny Morrison has been a prominent part of the long track team since the mid-2000s.
Macdonald started training with the Fort St. James Falcons speed skating club at the age of six. As she grew, she began to dominate at the provincial level and, at age 11, was the Canadian midget champion in both short and long track.
In her 16-year-old season, Macdonald moved to Calgary, home of a national training centre. A year later, in 2011, she was part of Team B.C. for the Canada Winter Games in Halifax and helped her squad win a silver medal in the women's relay.
Macdonald went on to study at the University of Calgary and represented Canada at the 2013 and 2015 World University Games. At the 2015 Games, held in Spain, she was part of a bronze-medal win in the women's relay.
Macdonald already has a couple World Cup medals in her collection, both from last season - a silver in the relay in Montreal and a bronze in the individual 1,000-metre distance in the Netherlands. Her individual medal was the first-ever by a short track B.C. skater at the World Cup level.
This summer, Macdonald relocated to Montreal so she could continue her development at a national training centre there.
Macdonald is now preparing for the Fall World Cup Selections, Sept. 23-25 in Montreal.
