A former Mount Forest resident has been chosen to take part in the Torch Relay for the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto.
Corrine Webb learned on March 12 she has been selected as one of 3,000 torch bearers for the games, which will be held July 7 to 26. An email from games organizers advised her she will participate in a relay segment on June 19 in Cambridge and will run 200 metres with the torch.
The Torch Relay will be a 41-day journey that will share the Pan Am spirit in more than 130 communities. The Pan Am flame will be lit in May 2015 during a traditional ceremony in Teotihuacan, Mexico, before it travels to Canada. The torch relay will start in Canada on May 30, and will make its final stop in Toronto on July 10, at the opening ceremony for the games. Torchbearers were selected through a variety of channels and many were chosen through a public process. Other members of the public were selected by sponsors and games stakeholders, including the communities the torch relay passes through.
Webb, 45, is a Guelph resident who is currently studying purchasing at Conestoga College in Kitchener. She got involved with the Torch Run application process through social media and last December was advised she had made the short list to be a “potential torch bearer,” but was required to keep the information confidential until receiving her official notice via email last week.
“I literally screamed,” she said. “I am extremely ecstatic.”
Webb said she is not a runner, but does recreational cycling and enjoys walking. However, this won’t be her first experience with a major athletic competition, as she worked as a volunteer on children’s programs at the opening ceremonies for the Special Olympics in Toronto in 1989.
“And then, here I am, so many years later …. bringing the games, because that’s literally what you’re doing, your passing the torch from person to person, bringing the games to Toronto,” she said. “The more I talk about it the more it sinks in.”
Webb lived for several years in the Mount Forest area, where her mother Jennifer Davis still resides.
“I’ve got a lot of people supporting me up there … I’ve got a lot of friends and family up there. We just need to bring the whole community up to Cambridge on that day,” said Webb.
“She has done so well, and I am so proud of her,” Davis stated in an email to the Advertiser.
The Pan American Games are a multi-sport event held every four years across the Americas. Close to 7,000 athletes from across Latin America, South America, the Caribbean and North America compete in 36 Pan Am and 15 Parapan Am Sports.
