Whitehorse teen slides into the top 100 in Olympic Committee's talent search

A young Whitehorse athlete has caught the attention of Luge Canada.

At 15 years old, Kody Strand is the first Yukoner to make the Top 100 athletes chosen by RBC Training Ground — the Canadian Olympic Committee's official talent search.

He attended the Canadian Olympic Committee’s official qualifier event when RBC Training Ground visited Whitehorse this spring.

“My mom signed me up just for fun, we didn’t really expect anything to happen from it,” he said.

Strand attends Porter Creek Secondary School, where he plays volleyball. His sport of choice.

At the event, officials took down his statistics, and put him through a variety of strength and endurance testing, like the beep test. 

He said ski jumping recruiters showed an interest first.

“I was honestly just surprised one sport reached out,” said Strand. Then, Luge Canada reached out.

He jumped feet first into luge — a sport he said he hadn’t considered before.

“It’s very shocking,” said Strand. “Never expected [it] to go this far but happy it has.” 

Luge is the fastest sport on ice. As an F1 enthusiast, Strand says he fell in love with the adrenaline rush.

More than 3,000 athletes from a range of sports participated in qualifier events across the country this year. 

After the qualifying event, Strand was invited to a training camp in Calgary.

“That camp is basically make it or break it for the new recruits,” said Dania Obratov, program coach and coordinator at Luge Canada. 

With 40 athletes in attendance — one of the largest camps Luge Canada has seen — Strand left an impression, explained Obratov.

“Me and the rest of the coaching staff right away thought ‘Yeah, we would love Kody to join our team'.”

After trying his hand at steering the sled and sliding down a