Indigenous youth the focus of RBC Training Ground expansion

It's an opportunity Canadian bobsledder Eden Wilson would have jumped at.

RBC Training Ground announced earlier this week it would host custom testing events for North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) provincial delegations, including Alberta and Saskatchewan, in addition to its usual complement of events for young athletes to test their skills in different sports.

Wilson, who is Black and Indigenous, competed in equestrian as a show jumper, before meeting Olympian Phylicia George, who convinced her to enter the sliding world.

Wilson said she's happy to be a role model for young Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) athletes who may not otherwise consider bobsleigh.

"For me, it always boils down to if there's not a seat at the table for you, you never show up to the table," she said. "[It's] the idea that until you see somebody in your sport doing what you want to do, it's unlikely that you'll ever take the steps to try it."

NAIG, which has athletes competing in 16 different sports including three traditional Indigenous sports (canoe/kayak, lacrosse and archery), is set to take place over eight days in July across cross Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Dartmouth, and Millbrook First Nation.

In its eighth year, Training Ground is a joint project of the Canadian Olympic Committee and sponsor RBC. Athletes across Canada between the ages of 14 and 25 are put through a series of speed, power, strength and endurance tests in regional qualifiers, and advance to a final, in hopes of pairing them with an Olympic sport.

Were it not for that "right place, right time" encounter with George, Wilson may never have thought about sliding.

"It's crazy to think that I would get in a tin can and go faster than I do in my car on the highway.