Thunder Bay athletes earn spots on Ontario Winter Games podium

Thunder Bay certainly is well-represented on the podiums at the 2024 Ontario Winter Games.

Three sports — wrestling, diving, and cross-country skiing — had medal ceremonies on Sunday.

One of Sunday's local successes was wrestler Merric BeauParlant, who took silver in the Male 55 category (he also won a silver Saturday as part of the men's team wrestling competition).

"I think the games were a great experience," he said following his bout with Ottawa's Braddock Slack. "I felt my experience was very well done, and just my overall placing was good."

Merric BeauParlant won't have too much time to celebrate, though: he's already looking ahead to the Northwestern Ontario Secondary Schools Athletics Association qualifiers, which begin on Wednesday.

"I'm going to be training and cutting weight," he said.

The BeauParlant family is familiar with wrestling medals: Merric BeauParlant's father, Justin BeauParlant, won plenty himself during his wrestling career.

Those include three Canadian Interuniversity Sport — now known as U Sports — gold medals, and he placed second at the 2000 World University Wrestling Championships.

"He did great," a beaming Justin BeauParlant said of his son's weekend success. "It was a big tournament. It's in front of his hometown, very emotional. Both his team final yesterday — and the team took silver — and his individual final today, there was a lot of emotion and it's something that every athlete has to deal with."

"But competing in front of your hometown is a real, real tough experience, but it's a great one. So lots of learning, lots of love from his teammates and his family."

On the women's side, Team Northwestern Ontario wrestling also had a successful weekend, earning gold medals in the team