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 competition on Saturday.

Next door, at the Lakehead University fieldhouse, the Thunder Bay Chill Soccer Club's girl's futsal team has earned a shot at gold: as of Sunday afternoon, the team was tied with Unionville Milliken SC for first place.

Both teams records of two wins, zero losses, and one tie, and will face each other in the gold medal game, which is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at the fieldhouse.

The Chill boy's futsal team, too, has a shot at a medal, thanks to a win on Sunday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, the Chill boy's team dropped its match against FC Toronto by a score of 7-2. However, they rebounded with a 2-0 victory over Unionville Milliken SC Red later in the day.

That second win means the Chill will once again face FC Toronto at 1 p.m. Monday, but this time with a bronze medal on the line (Unionville Milliken SC White and Toronto Azzurri will play for gold at 3 p.m.).

"It was more of an opportunity we took because it was at home," Chill coach Marco Colistro said about the boy's team playing in the Winter Games. "Futsal is very similar to soccer, obviously, so we kind of did a crash course on it."

"We got about 10 to 12 sessions in to try and prepare and get up to speed as quickly as we can," he said. "A little bit of a competitive disadvantage playing against teams that do this year round, or a little bit more often than us, but for us it was an experience for our players and our athletes and the opportunity to play at home, which for us is very rare because of where we're located."

Regarding Sunday's loss, Colistro said FC Toronto is an "excellent team."

"They have some incredible players who are in the provincial program, on the provincial team, so we knew it was gonna be tough, but we'll learn from it," he said. "Other than that, I think the experience has been good for our players, coaches, everyone involved, to play at home in an event like this."

"Would have liked to do a little bit better, of course, but for sure it's an enjoyable experience."

While Chill player Jack Van Den Oetelaar wasn't happy with Sunday morning's loss, he's still enjoying his time on the futsal court.

"It's a fun game," he said Sunday. "I like it a lot. It's fast-paced."

"It corresponds to when I play outdoor 11 v 11, and helps me with like stuff I got to do out there. So it helps me improve my skills a lot, like shielding or playing it quick, under pressure."

Badminton and ringette medals will also be awarded on Monday, bringing an end to the first weekend of Ontario Winter Games competition.

Results, and a schedule of events, are available on the Ontario Winter Games website.

The games will resume next weekend, with five-pin bowling, archery, artistic swimming, biathlon, curling, fencing, and hockey competitions taking place.

A second opening ceremony will also be held Friday to mark the start of the second weekend of competition.