Local Huntsville skiers Sophia and Mya Marshall have been selected to the Training Centre in Thunder Bay.
Sophia moved there in May to begin her training and Mya headed up to the training center on July 3rd, after her high school graduation. Both girls have worked extremely hard to get to this point and this is a huge stepping stone to their ultimate goal of being on the national team.
The girls have been cross-country skiing for as long as they can remember. Growing up in Huntsville they both took part in the Jackrabbits program at Arrowhead Nordic and fell in love with the sport. As they grew older and started competing, their passion became stronger and they quickly realized that someday they
wanted to compete for Canada internationally.
Throughout the years they have placed consistently top 3rd on the provincial circuit and have had multiple top 10 performances at the national level.
As high-performance cross-country skiers, they train for 11 months of the year. Training hours range from 10 hrs for a recovery week to 25hrs for a volume week. These high-volume training hours make it difficult to work full-time. Athletes like this have very little extra money for things that most 18-20-year-olds can afford as most of the money they make from their part-time work goes towards their training costs.
Although they also work as much as they can while training it is very difficult to make enough money to fully support the costs which come along with the
sport. “We are very excited for the opportunity to join the training center as it will bring us one step closer to achieving our dream. However, joining a national development center is going to come with some costs as it is not funded by the government. The total training center cost is going to amount to around $15,000 for just one of us! Athletes pay for coaching and travel, on top of living expenses and school tuition if they are doing school part-time,” said Mya.
Recently the girls had an opportunity for a summer camp in Germany with Team Ontario where they would have been able to ski on snow in a ski tunnel but unfortunately had to turn it down due to the costs. Team Marshall has been organizing fundraisers in the community. The most recent fundraiser was a soup sampling evening with a silent auction. They had a garage sale at the Port Sydney community garage sale, and they will be running a barbeque at Independent in
August.
The team has set up a Gofundme site where anyone who can make a donation of any amount. If you are interested in donating to their training center costs, the link is below. They would like to thank everyone in the community who has supported their journey so far!
Instagram: team.marshall_xc
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