Even after a year off from competitive inline skating, Harriston’s Paisley Perrie has proved she still has what it takes.
The 13-year old competed in the Canadian Inline Speed Skating National Championships held in Calgary from July 20 to 26.
The week long event feature long and short track inline races as well as a 42km marathon.
This was Perrie’s first year in the junior world class division (ages 13 to 18).
On the first day of competition, she skated the 42km marathon in a record time of 1hour, 30 minutes and 50 seconds to earn Ontario’s first gold medal.
The site of the marathon was the Calgary Motor Speedway, a good track for car racing but very rough for inline racing.
As a result, Perrie developed some serious blister problems on both feet. Saturday and Sunday featured the long track events on a 400 metre track in Okotoks. Perrie again would skate in the junior World Class division, while sister Elizabeth skated in the intermediate division.
Perrie again took first place in the 300 metre time trial and set a new Canadian record.
Not to be outdone, her sister also won the intermediate 300 with a new record.
Paisley Perrie would finish the weekend with three more Canadian records. She broke the 500 and the 1,000 metre records and teamed up with Canadian World Team members Sarah Hopkins, 26, and Morgane Echardour, 22, to easily smash the three ladies 3,000 metre relay.
On Monday, the focus was on the short track indoor events at Lloyds Rollercade.
Alberta is well known as a short track team and was heavily favored indoors. Most of the Ontario skaters who attempted the races came up short of a podium finish. With only an hour of practice under her belt Perrie looked a bit shaky.
Perrie just managed to hold off Alberta’s top junior skater Mackayla D’Mello to take two of the three races and the overall title.
In the last race of the meet, she teamed up with three of the Alberta girls to set a new record in the four Ladies 2,000 metre relay.
That would provide her sixth gold and her sixth national record of the competition.
With only two small inline races in the schedule Perrie will head to Montreal to train for the coming ice season.
