Every time Addy Parish runs down the track, then hops, steps and jumps, it feels as if she is flying.
The Highlands track and field star recently returned home from Calgary, where she won gold in the U16 women’s triple jump, with a personal best of 11.59 metres, outdistancing her nearest competitor, at 11.20.
Addy said her passion for the sport started when she was in Grade 3. She began as a long jumper but triple jump appealed.
“Every time I do triple jump, I feel like I’m flying because you get so much room to jump and you’re not just jumping into a pit, you’re doing several steps. So, you just feel like you’re flying.”
While she bronzed at OFSAA this year, the student, entering Grade 10 at Haliburton Highlands Secondary School, believes the recent nationals have given her a boost to take her triple jump to the next level.
Olympics a dream
“It feels really good, but also a lot,” she says, acknowledging that if she wants to go further in the discipline, she is going to have to really commit to her training.
While in Calgary, she met a coach, Chris Timm, from Kitchener, who has agreed to work with her. It will mean traveling to southwestern Ontario.
Timm worked with Addy before the nationals, and, “just the little corrections he could do changed the whole jump for me.” In fact, on her first jump, she improved by 11 centimetres.
She’s now got the personal best bug, saying, “I just hope to accomplish that every time I jump, that I get a new personal best and I’ll just see where that takes me.”
At 5’9’’, she is expected to grow another two inches. She also ran hurdles at the championships (placing 13th overall) and plays competitive volleyball. She is a former athlete of the year at J. Douglas Hodgson Elementary School and was the top seeded girl in Grade 8 track.
With the Olympics recently completed in Paris, France, Addy does dream about what the future might hold. Dominica’s Thea LaFond won the gold in triple jump with a leap of 15.02 metres. “I think it would be cool to make the Olympics, but I have to train a lot, but we’ll see. The more years that go by, if I get better, I might be able to go, I have to wait and see.” She thanks her track coaches and the local track and field club. On Aug. 14, she brought her medal to a club gathering, and talked about her experience in Calgary. Her mom, Stacey, said it was, “a big deal for the club, to see where the kids can go.” Stacey added she is “unbelievably proud” of her daughter and does not think Addy even knows what she has accomplished. “To be honest, I don’t think she has any idea what she’s done.” More than 965 young Canadian athletes competed for medals in Canada’s only track and field championships for the under-16 and under-18 categories.
