The heavy snowstorm this past weekend kiboshed Carter Simpson’s plans to get a few downhill runs in at Glen Eden in Milton on Sunday.
So what does a world-class athlete set to ski in the 2025 Special Olympics next month do when that happens? He heads to a spin class at Good Life Fitness in St. Catharines, of course.
After a two-day staging event in Toronto starting on March 3, the 31-year-old Niagara-on-the-Lake resident will fly to Turin, Italy on Wednesday, March 5. There he will settle in with Team Canada for the 2025 Special Olympics World Winter Games.
Following the opening ceremony at the Inalpi Arena three days later, Simpson will travel 101 km southwest to Sestriere’s Vialattea Resort, where he will wear Team Canada’s red and white in three alpine skiing events between March 9 and 15.
The former Sault Ste. Marie resident will be among the 1,500 athletes competing from 102 countries at the Turin Games. Athletes will compete in eight winter sports over nine days, showcasing their skills in alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, dance sport, figure skating, floorball, snowboarding, snowshoeing, and short-track speed skating.
Though Simpson has won medals at both the provincial and national levels, the international nature of next month’s games may not have fully sunk in for him yet.
“He’s very excited about it,” his mother AnnLiz Simpson says, “but I think the nerves are also starting to hit. It’s becoming very real.”
And it gets more real as of tonight when Carter and fellow Special Olympian Ewan Barclay of Fonthill (speed skating) are feted by the West Niagara Special Olympics team at a pep rally in Grimsby. Simpson and Barclay are basketball teammates with the West Niagara club.
“I know how hard these athletes train to get a chance to compete at the Worlds,” says event organizer Kim Posavad, whose son Benjamin won a silver medal in track and field in Athens in 2011, where 60,000 people attended the opening ceremony. “We’re so excited for them and their families.”
Carter will be wearing his official Team Canada jacket tonight, the first time he’s allowed to don it in public. When he received it at a recent training camp he FaceTimed his family, wiping tears away.
“I cannot believe it,” he told them. “I’m on Team Canada.”
Carter has been hard at work training for his debut on the world stage. He works with his Team Ontario coaches three days a week at Kitchener’s Chicopee Ski Resort. Most Thursdays and Fridays he hits the slopes at Holiday Valley in Ellicottville, New York with AnnLiz and his father Mike Sweeny. And Sundays are reserved for Glen Eden when weather permits.
Carter won three medals for Team Ontario last winter in Calgary’s Special Olympics Canada Winter Games - gold in Super G, silver in Slalom and bronze in the Giant Slalom - impressing the Team Canada coaches with his performance.
He continued to impress them with his skill and fitness level at training camps in Alberta in December and Quebec City at the end of January. When asked if he’s skiing even better now than he was last winter, Carter answers with a resounding “Yes”.
He will be competing in those same three alpine skiing events in Italy.
“He is in such good shape right now,” AnnLiz tells The Local. “He’s been training really hard, working with a personal trainer twice a week, and he’s bulked up quite a bit. It’s amazing to see his dedication.”
The entire family will be making the trip to Italy to support Carter. His brothers Palmer and Chandler fly out on March 3 and 4, AnnLiz and Mike depart on March 6 and Mike’s daughter Elizabeth leaves the following day. They will all attend the opening ceremonies in Turin and then head to Sestriere for Carter’s races.
“We’ll get some skiing in ourselves on his off days,” AnnLiz, a new member of the NOTL Rotary Club says, “and when he’s finished on the 15th we’re going to visit my host family in Switzerland from when I was a Rotary exchange student many years ago.”
Carter, by the way, has a John Street fan club that has developed over the short three years that the family has lived here since making the move from Northern Ontario. They have held gatherings to congratulate their beloved neighbour after his medal-winning performance at last year’s Nationals and when he was named to Team Canada for this year’s Worlds.
They won’t be making the trip to Italy trip but will be there at tonight’s pep rally to show their support.
Mom couldn’t be more proud of what her son has accomplished and the impact he has made on the NOTL community.
“Everyone has been so incredibly supportive,” she beams. “When I mentioned this rally they were all thrilled and wanted to be there. And his spin class at Good Life, the instructors and fellow riders are planning to be there, too. That speaks volumes. To come to a new community and be embraced like he has been is phenomenal. “