SUDBURY -- A young curler in Sudbury is preparing for a major competition overseas next year.
After the holidays, the Lauren Rajala will fly to Switzerland to take part in the 2020 Youth Olympics.
"My dad introduced me to the sport. I think I was around seven-years-old. So started curling at the Falconbridge Curling Club and I just went from there and I just fell in love with it," said Rajala.
The 17-year-old hits the ice at the Idylwylde Curling Club at least four times a week in preparation.
"We had about 60 applicants and so the scouts we watched lots of games at both the Canada Winter Games and the under 18 nationals. The four athletes that have been selected, Nathan Young is from Newfoundland, Emily Deschenes is from Ottawa and Lauren, of course, from the Sudbury area and Jaedon Neuert is from Winnipeg," said Helen Radford, Team Canada Curling Coach.
The team has met four times in person to train but the athletes have done most of the work leading up independently.
They will compete against groups from 24 countries from January 9 to 22.
"The first week of competition will be our mixed team. So Lauren and the three other athletes will compete as team Canada and then after that event is over there's a ranking system that happens, so the top teams, the individual athletes, will get ranked with somebody on the lower-ranked team and they enter a second competition called mixed doubles," explained Radford.
Rajala says she's excited to compete but she's also just looking forward to the overall experience.
"The travel there, the Olympic experience, cause it's a multisport event so playing on arena level ice, the Olympic village, all of the athletes you can meet from Canada and all over the world. It's going to be a pretty neat experience," she expressed.
Radford says this is only the third time the Youth Winter Olympics have been held. Back in 2012, Team Canada won bronze in curling and most recently gold in 2016.
She says she is hopeful this team will get to stand on the podium as well.
