WEYBURN – Weyburn Special Olympics bowler Robin Stelter and her coach, Jo-Ann Paxman, returned through a snowstorm over the weekend after winning a silver medal at the Special Olympics Canada Winter Games in Calgary.
The team was in Calgary from Feb. 26 until Sunday, and spent the first couple of days playing six bowling matches.
The team was then placed into divisional categories based on their play, then on the third day they bowled for the finals, with Robin’s team, called “Spare Me”, ended up winning the silver medal.
There were two other Team Sask bowling teams. “King Pins” also won Silver, and the “Rock n Rollers” won Bronze.
In the singles division, three Team Sask bowlers won singles medals and they were all from Robin’s team.
“Robin missed out on a bronze medal by only 25 points, very close,” said Paxman, the equivalent of one ball.
“We all had an amazing time!” she added, noting there was lots of pin trading at the Games, and Robin was able to add many new pins to her display board, plus getting souvenirs like hoodies and other Special O Games items.
Paxman added they were kept very busy throughout the five days they were at the Games, with traffic being one of the factors that delayed their ability to get around the city.
The weather was blowing snow on the day they wanted to go see the Calgary Tower, so they weren’t able to visit it.
Asked what she had the most fun at, Robin said the dance was her favourite event outside of the competition. This was held right after the closing ceremonies.
Paxman noted that a team of Clydesdales were used for the opening ceremonies, which she had never seen done before, with the ceremonies all held on the Stampede Grounds, not far from the Saddledome.
In the final medal tally, Saskatchewan placed seventh, with 10 gold medals, five silver and 15 bronze for a total of 30 medals.
Saskatchewan had a team of 48 athletes, including 15 bowlers, and 28 mission staff and coaches. Altogether there were around 4,000 athletes, coaches, officials and mission staff from across Canada at the Winter Games.
