Keanan St. Rose has a tough act to follow this weekend in Kamloops when he digs in his blades at the B.C. short track speed skating championships.
Last weekend at the B.C. Winter Games in Penticton, the 14-year-old Prince George Blizzard Speed Skating Club member chilled the competition in the short track arena in the boys under-14 class, winning three gold medals, one silver and two bronze.
In Penticton, St. Rose won both 400-metre races and the super 1,500m event, helped the B.C. mixed team win silver in the 3,000m relay and captured bronze in the 200m pursuit and 2,000m points race.
"That felt really good, my goal was to get at least one gold medal and I came home with three so I'm happy about that," said St. Rose, who started speed skating when he was three.
St. Rose would have had a fourth win at B.C. Games had he not fallen on the last corner, while leading the 200m event. He proved his perseverance in the 2000m final when he lost an edge and hit the deck, three laps into the 20-lap race, and still managed to claim bronze in the eight-skater race.
Now in his 11th season, St. Rose has taken major strides this season and as the B.C. Games champion he will be the one everybody is gunning for in Kamloops this weekend in the 12-15-year-old boys provincial class. He'll be racing most of the same skaters he saw in Penticton and he likes his chances.
"I feel pretty good right now," he said. "My technique and my starts have improved. Last year my starts weren't the best so we worked on them and they got better. My mom (Blizzard coach Lorelei St. Rose) and I usually go to the Northern Sport Centre and we use (elastic) straps to imitate it."
Blizzard skater Robyn Barwise edged clubmate Sylvia Masich by four-thousandths of a second to claim bronze in the under-16 girls super 1,000m event at B.C. Games. It took high-speed camera at the finish line to determine Barwise got to the finish line just ahead of Masich.
"If I had to lose the bronze medal to someone I'm glad I lost it to Robyn, a teammate of mine, but it was tough to take in, being four-thousands away," said the 15-year-old Masich. "It would have been cool to share the podium with my teammate. It was the last race and it was a good way to end it, especially when the crowd clapped after our finish."
Finishing fourth overall in the U-16 class, it was the second B.C. Winter Games experience for Barwise, a former figure skater, who competed in short track two years ago in Mission.
"It was really fun because this time we got to watch other sports - last time we were in a different venue, but this time we were all together," said Barwise, who turned 15 on Friday.
St. Rose, Barwise, Masich and fellow Blizzard skaters Kieran Hanson, 13; Max Schonewille, 14; Craig Miller, 14; and 12-year-old Olivia Masich are all entered in the provincial meet this weekend. The top three skaters in each age class will represent B.C. at the Western Canadian short track championships in Edmonton, March 19-20.
"The goal for provincials is top three and because B.C. usually does well, we often can fill up spaces that other provinces don't," said Blizzard advanced group coach Corine Masich. "If they skate as well as they did at B.C. Games, I can see them all going."
Sylvia Masich and Eric Orlowsky will represent the Blizzard next weekend in Calgary at a Grand Prix long track meet. Orlowsky, 15, won B.C. Games gold in Penticton in the 1,500m event and racked up bronze-medal finishes in the 500 and super 1,000m events.
Orlowsky will also compete in the Canada Cup No. 4 meet in Calgary later this month.
