Crews are working on the $3-million Liverpool Community Sports Field at Liverpool Regional High School. (Rick Conrad)

There may be a little short-term pain this fall for some big long-term gain for Liverpool’s high school soccer teams as they wait for a new multimillion-dollar field and track to be completed.

Crews are working now on building the $3-million-plus Liverpool Community Sports Field at Liverpool Regional High School. It will feature the South Shore’s only all-weather, year-round track and a new artificial turf soccer field.

Kristopher Snarby, president of the Queens County Track Society which is leading the effort, said the field likely won’t be finished until November. And depending on the weather, the new rubberized track probably won’t be ready until early spring.

“They’re working hard, they have a camper on site and the crew’s actually living in the camper and working pretty long days,” Snarby said Tuesday.

“We’re hoping that the field will be done late October, early November and the track itself, it depends on weather in terms of when they can lay the track. So the track will either be done in November as well or it will have to wait till spring when things are little warmer. So things are coming together fairly well. We kind of had a pipe dream that the soccer field would be ready for this fall, but that’s not going to happen unfortunately.”

In the meantime, he said the high school’s boys and girls soccer teams are working with the middle school in Liverpool to use that field for practices. He said they’ll likely have to find another field outside Liverpool for their games. 

Despite having to wait a little longer than they’d hoped, Snarby says it’s gratifying to see the project coming together.

“There have been so many people pushing for this for so long, it’s nice to finally see the end result coming together. The contractors that are doing the work are doing a great job there. They’re working really hard to move along as fast as possible.

“It’s just really exciting to know that the community is going to have this facility in a few months. And it’ll be great to see people start to use it. I’ve had inquiries already from other areas who are interested in renting the field to have some higher level soccer taking place there. So that’s really positive. It’s just really exciting for sure.”

The track and field project got a $1.8-million funding commitment from the federal government, $1.2 million from the province and $250,000 from the Region of Queens municipality. 

Snarby said his group will be launching a private fundraising campaign in the next couple of weeks to cover other costs, such as a shot put and discus throwing area.

He said doing those separately from the main project is cheaper.

“The costs to do it as a whole project were extremely expensive. So we had to pull them out of the project and we’re still going to get them done, but they’re going to be quite a lot more cost-effective.”

Snarby said that as long as construction continues to go as planned, everything should be ready for use by March or April next year. 

“We’re looking forward to the end result.”

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Sarah Mitton of Brooklyn, Queens County, has qualified for the shot put final at the Paris 2024 Olympics. This is a photo from the World Athletics Indoor Championship in March where she won gold. (Sarah Mitton photo)

Brooklyn’s Sarah Mitton qualified for the shot put final at the 2024 Olympics in Paris this morning on her first throw.

The 28-year-old world indoor champion made it through to Friday’s final with a throw of 19.77 metres, which was the best of the qualifying round. The qualification standard is 19.15 m.

“That’s the way I like it,” Mitton told CBC Sports. “It’s a lot less stressful when you’re one and done.”

Mitton’s mother, Bonnie, was in the Stade de France to see her daughter go through to the final.

The top-rated American and two-time world champion Chase Jackson did not make it to the final. She missed her first two attempts and threw 17.6 m on her third.

New Zealand’s Maddison-Lee Wesche was the second-best qualifier at 19.25 m and Germany’s Yemisi Ogunleye was third with a throw of 19.24 m.

The final is scheduled for Friday at 2:37 p.m.

The Astor Theatre in Liverpool is holding a watch party so that Mitton’s Queens County fans can watch the event live. That goes from 2 to 4 p.m. on Friday.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Brooklyn judo athlete Abigail Smith is getting ready for the 2024 Canadian Open Championships in Montreal from May 23-26. (Rick Conrad)

Queens County judo athlete Abigail Smith is the first to admit she isn’t the best driver — yet.

Smith doesn’t have her drivers licence, but she’s learning. And if she takes the same approach to mastering the rules of the road as she does to racking up medals at national and international competitions, she’ll be motoring around in no time.

But first, the 16-year-old from Brooklyn is gearing up for what she calls her most important tournament of the year.

The 2024 Canadian Open Championships in Montreal are set for May 23 to 26. Smith will be competing in the U18 and U21 divisions. She’s been there twice before and won silver both times.

“My goal is to win,” she said in an interview this week. “I really think I can win this year. If I win in my U18 division, then I’ll be going with Team Canada to represent them at (World Championships Cadets), which is in Peru. So if I win, I’ll go to worlds, which is my goal. Still, if I don’t win, it’s a huge experience to be at nationals. It’s a big deal.”

So far, Smith seems to be on the right track. The Grade 10 student at Liverpool Regional High School captured two gold medals at the Eastern Canadian Championships in April. 

She won the top spot in the U18 division, and she also triumphed for the first time in the senior division.

“The senior division is always a lot harder, because I’m fighting women, and they’re more experienced and they have more knowledge of fighting. But knowing that I fit in in the senior division I know I’m on the right track for when I eventually am a senior, hopefully I’ll be medalling as well and hopefully I’ll keep winning.”

Her wins at the Eastern Canadian Championships were only a month after an impressive showing at the International Thuringia Cup in Germany in late March. She won two meets and lost two. But she says the experience was “next level, it was so amazing.

“When you’re training in Canada, you know most of your people so you’re all friends. But in Germany, everybody is there to win, even when you’re just training and doing a basic little practice fight, they’re going to try to kill you. So you have to fight like it’s the biggest fight of your life for every round you do. 

“It was really intense which is exactly what you need to train like if you want to get somewhere in judo.”

Smith was in Germany for a week and a half. She said she learned a lot.

‘The biggest thing I think it helped was my confidence, to be able to travel by myself, to be able to fight people who are not from Canada, to have no idea who the heck you’re fighting, that really boosted my confidence. … The competition of course was beneficial. But the training after, that was the reason I was there, for the training, it was amazing.”

Smith is doing more than making an impression on the judo mat. She is also Sport Nova Scotia’s True Sport ambassador for May. Twelve young athletes were chosen from around Nova Scotia to post about their experiences and to promote the values of fair, inclusive and safe play.

“Lots of ambassadors have been posting about one or two experiences. I’ve been posting about my experiences. But I’ve been involving my judo team and my coaches so they can share their experiences as well.

“Having a bond with my team is so important. We work as a team together so whatever I’m doing, I want them to be involved in, so I want them to be promoted too.”

Smith trains four days a week with her club Nova United Martial Arts, in addition to daily strength and cardio workouts. She also coaches young judo athletes two days a week in Liverpool and older athletes one day a week in Halifax. 

While Smith says she’s getting busier with school, training, coaching and competitions, she also has to find time to get behind the wheel. 

“I just turned 16, I want to be able to learn to drive now. So I have to make time for that. I have to make time for training. I’m getting to the age where judo needs to be my main priority, so I have to add in more hours for judo. It’s been a lot lately, school’s been getting harder as I’m getting older. But I’m doing my best to keep up with everything, and if there’s a point where I can’t handle it, I’ll cut back. But hopefully, I’m never going to have to do that because I never want to cut back on judo.”

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Abigail Smith with her coach Jason Scott at the Elite National Championships in Edmonton on Jan. 13 and 14. (Abigail Smith photo)

Another Queens County athlete is getting ready to represent Canada on the world stage.

Last Friday, Sarah Mitton of Brooklyn won her first international gold medal in the shot put when she beat the rest of the field at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow.

Now, 16-year-old judo athlete Abigail Smith of Brooklyn is training hard for the International Thuringia Cup in Germany on March 23. 

Smith trains four days a week after school at Nova United Martial Arts, her judo club in Halifax. And she’s getting ready for a sold-out fundraiser this Saturday at Route 3 Cellar Bar and Grill. It’s an ‘80s-themed bowling tournament at 3 p.m.

Smith has had a busy year already nationally and internationally.

She finished third at the Danish Open in early February. She captured two bronze medals in her class at a national judo meet in Edmonton in January. And in November, she captured silver and bronze at the Pan American Cup in Montreal, her first international competition. 

She is ranked in the Judo Canada Top 10 in the U-18 division. Sport Nova Scotia has chosen her to be one of 12 Nova Scotia True Sport Athlete Ambassadors for 2024. 

And she is one of only two members of her club representing Canada at separate events in Germany.

Smith told QCCR in January that she’s lucky to have such great family, community and team support.

“People think judo is an individual sport and it is an individual sport, but it’s a huge team sport because you can’t get anywhere without your team, your training partners,” she says. “And having a good team you can rely on in sport and outside of sport is really important and that’s what’s helped me get so far in judo.”

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Listen below to the QCCR news update for Tuesday

Sarah Mitton of Brooklyn, Queens County, after winning the gold medal in the shot put at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow on Friday morning. (Sarah Mitton photo)

Brooklyn’s Sarah Mitton can now add world champion to her already long list of accomplishments.

The Olympic shot putter from Queens County captured the gold medal Friday morning at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow.

“Incredible. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” she said in an interview via Zoom from Glasgow shortly after her win. 

“I’ve just been up in the top but never really on top at a world championship and now I’ve done three outdoor worlds and this is my second indoor worlds so it’s been a long time coming, so it’s just really sweet.”

Mitton beat her own Canadian record, twice: once with her fourth throw at 20.20 metres, which secured the gold medal. And then, she beat her own record again with her sixth and last throw of 20.22 metres. That was also a season’s best.

“The last one was really fun because when you’re in the lead you get to be the last thrower,” she said. “And so we know what third is, the only person that can overtake you is this girl in second. She doesn’t do it and then you’re standing there and you still have one attempt and you know you’ve just won a world indoor championships which is kind of surreal because you’re just flooded with emotion. 

“And so I stood there and I had goosebumps all over my legs and I was like, ‘OK. But you still have one more attempt to make a mark and have a better throw and just increase your lead.’ I really love the sixth round. It’s the last throw of the (competition), particularly this one where it’s the very last throw of the comp and it’s just really free. Like it didn’t matter if I threw 10 metres, it didn’t matter if I threw 25, I was still gonna be the champion so I think it opens the door for a really relaxed fun throw.”

German athlete Yemeni Ogunleye captured silver with a personal best throw of 20.19 metres. American Chase Jackson won bronze with a throw of 19.67 metres. 

Mitton said that making her first world indoor final in 2022 and throwing more than 19 metres for the first time at a championship really boosted her confidence. And that set her up for the success she’s had ever since.

She is ranked No. 2 in the world in the shot put. She won Canada’s first ever world medal in women’s shot put with her silver at the Budapest games in 2023. And she is a Commonwealth Games champion and Pan American Games champion.

She set a new Canadian indoor record just last week in the Czech Republic with a throw of 20.08 metres. Her personal best is 20.33 metres.

“I had usually underperformed from what I was usually capable of at these majors and I think it really just opened my eyes to be able to believe in myself that hey you’re now amongst these girls. You can break into their world. And from there, it just seems to have skyrocketed.”

And she’s been doing it all with bone chips in her right elbow. 

“My right arm takes a big brunt of the throw every time. And a lot of the girls struggle with elbow issues and of course the older you get, the more speed and force that gets put through your elbow.

“Thankfully we’ve been able to manage that from a non-surgical perspective for now and everything’s been good. … Thankfully, that’s been much better than last season, so I think that’s why I might be seeing a little bit more success indoors than I did last year.”

While her family didn’t make the trip to Glasgow for the short weekend competition, they will all be in Paris for the Summer Olympics in August.

In Glasgow, she had her coach and his wife and the rest of the Canadian team cheering her on.

“She’s been a big part of my career. She’s very involved. She just brings a really good, fun energy. She’s always the loudest person in the stadium and I can hear her from a mile away. But it’s been really fun to have her here.”

She says that having this breakthrough in Glasgow sets her up nicely for the Olympics.

“I’ve had my eye on Paris for two years at least. And everything we’ve been doing in the last two years is a part of our preparation, the same thing with this championships. This was a big part and I think right now, everything’s working, everything’s coming together.”

Mitton has a few meets coming up in China and Morocco, before returning to Canada to begin high-performance training. Then there are the national championships at the end of June, before heading to Barcelona to train and prepare for the Olympics.

Before any of that, though, she’ll be taking a week off and coming home to Liverpool to visit friends and family. And she may even pop into the gym at Queens Place Emera Centre when she’s home.

“I’m excited to see everybody,” she says. “I think it’s always fun walking into Queens Place. It can be really overwhelming, because it’s a lot of people I grew up with. It’s a lot of friends and family, but it’s also just been really great. When you show up, you know everybody and it just feels like home.

“I just want to thank everyone so much for the support. I know the flood of that comes from Liverpool and Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, and all through the East Coast. But I’m working my best to get back to everyone, but I will see you all when I get home. And I just really appreciate all the messages and the support.”

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Listen to QCCR’s interview with Sarah Mitton below

Sarah Mitton, wearing the red Team Canada jersey, was among the inaugural inductees to the Olympic Wall at Queens Place Emera Centre. Photo Ed Halverson

UPDATED 8:55 a.m. FRIDAY

Brooklyn’s Sarah Mitton won gold Friday morning in the shot put at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow with a season’s best throw of 20.22 metres.

She broke her own Canadian record with the throw.

German athlete Yemeni Ogunleye captured silver with a personal best throw of 20.19 metres. American Chase Jackson won bronze with a throw of 19.67 metres.

Mitton is ranked No. 2 in the world in the shot put. She won Canada’s first ever world medal in women’s shot put with her silver at the Budapest games in 2023. She is also a Commonwealth Games champion and Pan American Games champion.

Mitton is the co-captain of Team Canada at the world indoor championships.

She set a new Canadian indoor record last week in the Czech Republic with a throw of 20.08 metres. Her personal best is 20.33 metres.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Susan Inglis and her daughter, snowshoe athlete Rebecca Delaney, will be part of Team Nova Scotia at the Special Olympics Canada Winter Games in Calgary, starting Feb. 27. (Rick Conrad photo)

By Rick Conrad

Queens County athletes are getting in some last-minute training as they prepare for a big national sporting event in Calgary later this month.

The Special Olympics Canada Winter Games begin Feb. 27 and run until March 2.

And Queens County will be well represented on Team Nova Scotia. 

Liverpool’s Rebecca Delaney, 27, will be one of three local athletes on the six-person snowshoe team. She’ll be racing in the 100-metre and 200-metre events, as well as the 4×100-metre relay.

This will be the 27-year-old’s first national winter games, though she’s competed and won at provincial winter games before. And she’s a veteran of summer games where she has won many medals in track and field.

She’s excited to do well, but racking up more medals isn’t what it’s all about.

“It doesn’t really matter to me,” she says. “I just want to go and have fun.”

Team Nova Scotia will be sending 69 athletes, coaches and mission staff to Calgary. Of those, 45 athletes will compete in eight sports – five-pin bowling, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, floor hockey, speed skating and snowshoeing.

The other team members from Queens County are Michael Moreau and Jillian Young, who are also on the snowshoe team, and Ben Theriau, who is on the curling team.

Delaney’s mother Susan Inglis is the snowshoe team’s assistant coach and Inglis’s partner Earl Mielke is the head coach.

Delaney and her teammates have been training twice a week, either indoors at Queens Place Emera Centre or outdoors when there’s enough snow.

She does some extra cardio and strength training at the Queens Place gym.

She’s going into Calgary as the fastest female on the Nova Scotia team.

“I’m competitive, very competitive. I play fair.”

Inglis says that while the games are a competition, they’re also a social event for athletes, coaches and their families.

“It’s very important. We have one athlete, our Jillian who has never been on a plane, doesn’t spend a whole lot of time outside of Liverpool so this is a really big deal for her. Whenever we go somewhere with the athletes, it’s one big social occasion.

“Everybody’s excited and happy because they don’t always get a lot of opportunities to socialize. They’re scattered in different smaller communities so Special Olympics provides a big social outlet for them. And getting to go away like this all together they’re going to have a great time. So am I.”

Still, Delaney says she won’t have much time for many social activities before she competes, because she needs to focus on her events. And that dedication usually pays off.

“It’s worth it when you bring it home,” she says.

Delaney has been involved in Special Olympics since 2014. When she graduated from high school, she was in a transition program at Verge House in Bridgewater for people with developmental delays.

She met a friend there who told her she should try snowshoeing.

“When she went to Verge House it opened up a whole new world,” Inglis says.

“She ended up going to the (Nova Scotia) winter games that year and came home with three medals and she was hooked and then I was hooked too.”

Inglis and Delaney say it would be great if more people would get involved with Special Olympics locally. 

“I just wish more athletes would come for Special Olympics, we need more athletes,” Delaney says.

“It is a wonderful place to volunteer,” Inglis says. “I obviously got involved because Rebecca was involved but it’s something that just draws people in, the enthusiasm. When you volunteer with Special Olympics you feel like you a member of the royal family or a rock star because everybody is always so excited to see you.”

The games in Calgary are also a chance to qualify for the Special Olympics World Winter Games in March 2025 in Torino, Italy. For now, though, Delaney says she’s focused on doing well in Calgary and having fun.

And she doesn’t plan to retire any time soon.

“Probably a long time till I want to give up. Because it’s fun, I get to socialize with people.”

And you can help too. Buy a Special Olympics donut from Tim Hortons Feb. 2 to 4 and 100 per cent of the proceeds support programs and athletes across Canada.

Delaney, Inglis and the rest of the team plan to leave for Calgary on Feb. 25 to have a day or two before the Games begin. And after the closing ceremonies, all of Team Nova Scotia will visit Lake Louise and Banff before they head home.

If you want to get involved with Special Olympics Lunenburg/Queens as a volunteer or as an athlete, contact the group through their Facebook page.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Lorna MacPherson, vice-president of the Liverpool Curling Club. (Rick Conrad photo)

By Rick Conrad

The Liverpool Curling Club will be hosting some of the best curlers in Nova Scotia starting on Thursday.

The provincial mixed doubles championship will be held from Feb. 1 to 4 at the club in downtown Liverpool. Twelve teams will be competing to represent Nova Scotia at the Canadian championships in Fredericton from March 17 to 22.

Club vice-president Lorna MacPherson says it’s a great chance to see some high-level curling.

“The games are approximately an hour and a half in length and they’re fun to watch because it’s fast curling. It makes it really fun for spectators to watch the games.”

Canada won the first ever mixed doubles curling Olympic gold medal in the sport’s debut at the 2018 games in South Korea.

“It has created quite a following and it’s becoming more and more popular.”

MacPherson, who is co-chairing the event with Cheryl Innes, says they hosted it last year with nine teams competing. This year’s 12 teams also include hometown duo Matt Sheffield and Megan Trimm, who will be representing the Liverpool Curling Club.

The mixed doubles championship is free. People can just drop in for any of the games or practices beginning Thursday morning at 9:30. 

“So our kitchen will be open for breakfast and for lunches and we welcome anybody from the community to come in and join us,” MacPherson says. “It’s certainly going to be fun curling to watch but we also are going to have great food to enjoy and I think they’ll find that it will be very warm hospitality at the curling club.”

All four of the rink’s ice sheets will be in play. There will be two draws on Thursday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.. And three on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

“We welcome the community. We want people to come in, and feel free to ask questions if they don’t understand what’s happening. It’s an opportunity for people in our community to see some fun curling, but also these are competitors, they’re athletes, they want to win and so there’s the combination of the competitiveness but in an environment that everybody can enjoy.”

Full details, including a schedule, will be posted on the Liverpool Curling Club’s Facebook page, and updated through the event.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Abigail Smith, 16, of Brooklyn, stands with her coach Jason Scott, displaying one of the two bronze medals she won at the Elite National Championships in Edmonton on Jan. 13 and 14. (Photo via Abigail Smith)

By Rick Conrad

Abigail Smith credits a lot of people for her success so far and so young in national and international judo meets. 

Her parents, her coaches, her teammates, her teachers. 

But what really gets her into a competitive frame of mind is some good ol’ country music. 

“A lot of people like to listen to pump-up music before a fight, but I like to listen to my country music to keep my calm and not thinking about judo before I do judo. That helps me to not think about what I have to do and then do it.”

So far, listening to the likes of Sam Barber and Luke Combs has helped keep the 16-year-old Brooklyn resident on the straight and narrow.

She won two bronze medals at a national judo meet in Edmonton last weekend, just before her 16th birthday. And in November, she captured silver and bronze at the Pan American Cup in Montreal, her first international competition. 

The medals at the Elite National Judo Championships in Edmonton were especially sweet, she says, because it featured the top judo athletes from across the country. 

“This is the biggest event in Canada. It’s a lot of work to get selected. So this year this was my favourite medal. Of course, I’m never happy with a bronze medal but this medal meant something to me so I was very happy with that. It means a lot.”

In Edmonton, she had her sights set on beating a rival judoka she hadn’t defeated yet. When they met in the U-18 division on Saturday, Smith lost to her. But on Sunday, in the senior division, Smith came back with a vengeance.

“She was my first fight and I had a very hard fight but I beat her, so winning that bronze medal meant a lot to me because I had been training specifically to beat that one person. So it was a big moment, we’d been working a while for that, me and my coach.”

Smith has been working at judo for 11 years. Based at Nova United Martial Arts in Halifax, she trains three to four days a week for up to two hours each session. That’s in addition to regular cardio and strength workouts. 

She said her father Troy Smith first got her interested in the sport.

“My first coach worked with my dad and my dad was like, ‘I have a crazy daughter at home that needs to get some energy out,’ and he brought me to judo with his co-workers.”

Smith, who is in Grade 10 at Liverpool Regional High School, hasn’t looked back. She is ranked in the Judo Canada Top 10 in the U-18 division. Sport Nova Scotia has chosen her to be one of 12 Nova Scotia True Sport Athlete Ambassadors for 2024. True Sport emphasizes fair, inclusive and safe play. 

She’ll be travelling to Denmark in early February to compete in the Danish Open.

And she just found out that she was selected to be part of Team Canada at the International Thuringia Cup Judo in Germany on March 23.

Competing nationally and internationally does cut into her school work, Smith says, but her teachers have been very supportive.

“I’m able to do what I’m doing, missing a lot of school because the teachers are very understanding and help me with my work to help me catch back up. So it’s nice to have teachers supporting me.”

She also credits the community support she’s received from the Region of Queens, Folk Law, Main and Mersey, Best Western Plus Liverpool and Sport Nova Scotia, as well as her coach Jason Scott and her teammates.

“People think judo is an individual sport and it is an individual sport, but it’s a huge team sport because you can’t get anywhere without your team, your training partners,” she says. “And having a good team you can rely on in sport and outside of sport is really important and that’s what’s helped me get so far in judo.”

She says she’s learned a lot of valuable lessons from the sport.

“That what you put in comes out. Whatever you want, it can happen. But you just have to put in that work and that extra effort and if you don’t, you’re not going to see the results you want, but if you do, then you’ll see results. And to be patient.”

With that frame of mind, she says she’s on track for her next big goal.

“I always say that I will be competing at Olympics and representing Canada at worlds one day so what I want to happen, I always say is going to happen. So hopefully, it will happen one day, Team Canada and the Olympics hopefully. We’re on track for that now.”

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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