NEWS FILE PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN
Medicine Hat's Christine Sullivan celebrates after a successful lift in the Alberta Summer Games Special Olympics powerlifting event on Saturday, July 8, 2017 at the Family Leisure Centre.
Medicine Hat News
Two Medicine Hat Special Olympics athletes were added to Canada’s roster for the upcoming World Games in the middle east.
Powerlifter Christine Sullivan and bowler Mitchell MacDonald were both officially added to the national team Wednesday, joining associate coach Pat Enns of Redcliff.
Sullivan, 52, won four gold medals at nationals last month in Nova Scotia. Next March’s games in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates will be her third time at worlds; she won two gold in Athens, Greece in 2011 and competed in Shanghai, China in 2007.
MacDonald, 28, won overall gold in 10-pin bowling at nationals in Prince Edward Island this summer. Unlike Sullivan he’s never been to the World Games.
Alberta will send 12 athletes, two coaches and an assistant chef de mission to the first-ever international Special Olympics games in the middle east in the organization’s 50-year history. Four are bowlers, four more are swimmers, plus one in golf, another in bocce, one in rhythmic gymnastics and Sullivan in powerlifting.
Enns was certain following nationals that Sullivan would be on the roster, but didn’t want to jump the gun and say so just in case.
“It was really good to see her pick up and rise to the challenge, do what she knows how to do,” Enns said of Sullivan in an Aug. 9 interview with the News. “The number of people is huge, you’re getting larger as we go forward.”
Approximately 7,000 athletes are expected in Abu Dhabi for the Special Olympics, which run March 14-21, 2019.
