Big Country Lanes and the 100 Mile House Special Olympics team hosted the regional qualifiers on March 24 for the 2019 Special Olympics.
“It went awesome. I think everyone had a lot of fun, there wasn’t really any stress and it all worked out,” said Denise Thiessen, the team coordinator.
There was a total of 12 teams from four communities in the venue hoping for their bowlers to qualify. Two of them were from 100 Mile House, two from Williams Lake and four from Prince George and Quesnel. Teams from Fort St. John and Dawson Creek were unable to come due to the weather.
All of the scores from the games go to the Special Olympics British Columbia office in Burnaby, who will then release which teams qualify for the 2019 Special Olympics Games in Vernon after adding up all the scores.
“Our first team had a bit of an off-time but once all the numbers are put together the provincial office will find out, but they had a lot of a fun,” said Thiessen.
The athletes in 100 Mile don’t compete often other than practices on Tuesdays and sometimes will go to Quesnel or Kamloops once a year for non-competitive tournaments such as the Gold Pan or Cowboy-Up tournaments.
“When we go there, our teams are a lot more relaxed and everything because they know it’s just for fun and we’re going to have some lunch and we’re going on a road trip,” said Thiessen. “So when we had the qualifiers on Saturday all the sudden the nerves set in and they felt they had to do really well so they might have tried too hard I guess you would say and when that happens like anybody and you try too hard, things don’t work out the way you want them to. But they did well. They did to their best of their ability and bowled a little lower than they usually bowl but it was all good, I’m very proud of them.”
The second team also had similar results.
Thiessen was unsure how long the process of finding out what teams will qualify usually takes.
Some of the highlights during the qualifiers were when the athletes got a strike which would set off roars, clapping, cheering and hollering Thiessen said.
The program will also be extended to go to the second week of June rather than end mid-April with practices on Tuesdays afternoon. If anyone is interested in volunteering or joining the team they can drop in during the practices or call Thiessen at 250-395-2352.