Prince Albert athlete Mathieu Cyr won three gold medals at the Canadian Junior Weightlifting Championships. (Submitted photo/Cathy Yuzek)

By Rob Mahon

Weightlifting Champs

Prince Albert athletes break personal records at junior weightlifting championships

Jun 6, 2022 | 1:26 PM

When people talk about Saskatchewan being a strong province, they likely don’t mean literally. Then again, maybe they should.

The province showed well at the Canadian Junior Weightlifting Championships, and three Prince Albert athletes and one coach made their contributions to that impressive display .

Saskatchewan brought home 17 medals from the event June 4 and 5 in La Prairie, Que. Prince Albert was well represented by Mathieu Cyr, Gracie Huet, and Erica Jacobson on the athlete side and Hanna Jacobson as an assistant coach.

“It was awesome, because we have a very young team compared to Ontario and Quebec,” said Ken Trofimuk, a long-time coach, board member, and past president with the Saskatchewan Weightlifting Association. “A lot of these athletes are still going to be competing for six more years. They’re just getting their toes in the water and they did not look out of place at all.”

At the weightlifting championships, athletes born in 2002 to 2009 compete in one of 10 different weight categories within their gender. It is an Olympic lifting event, and Saskatchewan sent 11 women and three men, along with a head coach and two assistants.

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Cyr, who competed in the 109-kilogram class, won three gold medals and broke all of his personal records. Jacobson, meanwhile, competed in the 55-kilogram class and broke her personal records by five kilograms. Huet competed in the 59-kilo class and broke her personal records by three kilograms as well, and attempted a further 3-kilo rise beyond that. Jacobson is only 14 years old, Huet 15, so both are eligible to compete again.

Trofimuk has been on the board for many years, has been certified as an international official, and has volunteer experience going back over 40 years. He also runs a lifting club in Prince Albert, and he’s seen it all. The future of the sport, both for coaches and players, impresses him.

“It puts us in a really good position,” Trofimuk said. “One of the coaches that went was Erica’s older sister, Hanna, and she’s 22 years old. She’s still an athlete but now she’s coaching and she’s on the board of directors at 22 years old.”

Trofimuk added the Jacobson family has another younger sister, just 11 years old, who could be the most talented of the three, and given the success of the other two sisters so far, that’s saying something.

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rob.mahon@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @RobMahonPxP