{"id":8456,"date":"2025-03-14T17:59:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T20:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=8456"},"modified":"2025-03-14T19:21:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T22:21:34","slug":"queens-county-athletes-race-to-gold-at-special-olympics-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/03\/14\/queens-county-athletes-race-to-gold-at-special-olympics-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens County athletes race to gold at Special Olympics in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jillian Young of Liverpool celebrates after winning the gold in her 200-metre snowshoe race at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Italy. (Special Olympics Canada)<\/p><\/div>\n

Queens County athletes are once again at the top of the world podium.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jillian Young and Rebecca Delaney of Liverpool captured gold this week at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Sestriere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Young was the first to win gold on Thursday in the snowshoe 200-metre F15 final. And Delaney won gold on Friday as part of the 4 x 100-metre relay snowshoe team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Susan Inglis, who is also Delaney\u2019s mother, is one of the Team Canada snowshoe coaches in Italy for the games.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s really amazing like the talent that is here and to see them compete on the world stage and do that well is just amazing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Young and Delaney are part of the 90-athlete-strong Team Canada at the games in Turin and Sestriere. And they contributed to Canada’s 76-medal haul.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bridgewater\u2019s Nick Skoreyko and Chloe Stoddart are the other athletes from Special Olympics Lunenburg\/Queens competing in Italy. Skoreyko finished fifth in both of his snowshoe races. And Stoddart claimed bronze in 500-metre cross-country skiing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Delaney also placed fourth and fifth in two other races, while Young finished sixth in her other race.<\/span><\/p>\n

Delaney\u2019s gold-medal-winning relay team has the fastest time in the world and Skoreyko was also in the fastest heat among male athletes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPretty big deal to go and represent your country,” Inglis said. <\/span><\/p>\n

“The medals are the icing on the cake, but the cake is still pretty good, pretty impressive. And they are here in Italy in these beautiful mountains with people from all over the world and they’re showcasing their talents here and they have done all so well that it\u2019s almost hard to believe that they can be in the Top 10 in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis little town of Liverpool can put out some pretty cool, amazing athletes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Inglis said Delaney\u2019s relay was run in the middle of a blizzard on the mountain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea what was happening on those relays until they got around to the 100-metre mark becuase you couldn’t see.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Inglis said every athlete achieved a personal best in their sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you’re beating your personal best times, which they\u2019ve all done, that\u2019s amazing in itself too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor Rebecca and Nick, they\u2019ve been training for a good nine months. And the minimum that they\u2019ve had to train was three times a week, so they\u2019re improved their performance by all that training.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another important aspect of the games is meeting other competitors from Canada and around the world. Inglis said the experience will only help set up the Lunenburg and Queens athletes for even more success.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that they now see waht opprotunities are out there for them. And if they work really hard, train really hard that they can continue to go to national games and maybe get to go to another world games.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As for herself, Inglis says she\u2019s learned a lot from other coaches, lessons she\u2019ll put into practice when she returns to Nova Scotia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives me that knowledge to bing back and share in nova scotia, not just within luen queens but with some of the other coaches in nova scotia that do snowshoeing as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic. I\u2019ve never met a Special Olympic athlete I haven\u2019t fallen in love with. And this has just opened up a\u00a0 new world to me because in Lunenburg Queens we have a limited group of athletes and I’ve been working with them for quite a few years but now I know athletes from all over the country. It\u2019s been wonderful.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday is the last day of competition at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Turin. And then it\u2019s the closing ceremonies Saturday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

After that, Inglis says she hopes to take a few weeks off before resuming training for the Nova Scotia Special Olympics provincial summer games in July.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt just was an overall amazing experience. I’m exhausted and looking forward to getting back home to my own bed and animals and things, but it’s been overall an amazing experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/specolympicsqueensmedalsmar1425.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Queens County athletes are once again at the top of the world podium. Jillian Young and Rebecca Delaney of Liverpool captured gold this week at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Sestriere. Young was the first to win gold on Thursday in the snowshoe 200-metre F15 final. And Delaney won gold on Friday as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[2935,2931,1811,2767,1716,2961,2932,49,1711,2960,1714,1710,1713,2933,1626,1712,2934],"class_list":["post-8456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-athletes","tag-chloe-stoddart","tag-gold-medal","tag-italy","tag-jillian-young","tag-medal","tag-nick-skoreyko","tag-queens-county","tag-rebecca-delaney","tag-sestriere","tag-snowshoeing","tag-special-olympics","tag-special-olympics-lunenburg-queens","tag-special-olympics-world-winter-games","tag-sports","tag-susan-inglis","tag-turin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8460,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456\/revisions\/8460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}