After taking a year off from competitive inline speed skating, 13-year-old Paisley Perrie competed in the Canadian Inline Speed Skating National Championships this month.
Calgary played host to the week-long event, featuring both long and short track inline races, as well as a 42km marathon. This is Perrie's first year in the Junior World Class division for athletes aged 13-18.
On day one, she skated the 42km marathon in a record time of 1:30.50, to pick up Ontario's first gold medal. The site of the marathon was the Calgary Motor Speedway, a good track for car racing but very rough for inline racing. As a result, Paisley developed some serious blister problems on both feet.
Saturday and Sunday brought the long track events, on a beautiful 400m track in Okotoks. Paisley again skated in the Junior World Class division, while her sister Elizabeth skated in the Intermediate division.
Again, Paisley drew first blood as she won the 300m time trial and set a new Canadian record. Not to be outdone, Liz also won the Intermediate 300m with a new record. Paisley finished the weekend with 3 more Canadian records. She broke the 500m, the 1000m, and teamed up with Canadian World Team members Sarah Hopkins, 26, and Morgane Echardour, 22, to easily smash the 3 Ladies 3000m relay.
On the Monday, the focus was on the short track indoor events at LLoyds Rollercade. Alberta is well known as a short track team, and were heavily favoured indoors. Most of the Ontario skaters who attempted the races came up short of a podium finish.
With only an hour’s practice under her belt, Paisley looked a bit shaky. On race day, she had to rely on her quick start off the line, and her short track ice talent. It was an exciting three races, with Paisley just managing to hold off Alberta's top junior skater Mackayla D'Mello to take two of the three races and the overall title.
In the last race of the meet, Paisley teamed up with three of the Alberta girls to set a new record in the 4 Ladies 2000m relay. This would prove to be Perrie's sixth gold and sixth national record of the competition. With only two small inline races in her schedule, Paisley now heads to Montreal to train for the upcoming ice season.