{"id":8531,"date":"2014-10-18T23:01:45","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T03:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8531"},"modified":"2014-10-22T16:28:45","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T20:28:45","slug":"students-find-inspiration-in-local-olympian-and-fellow-alumna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/students-find-inspiration-in-local-olympian-and-fellow-alumna\/","title":{"rendered":"Students find inspiration in local Olympian and fellow alumna"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pickering College in Newmarket was ripe with school spirit this month, honouring past and present students alike at an athletic banner-raising ceremony in the school gymnasium.<\/p>\n

The annual event celebrates the achievements and championship wins of the previous school year\u2019s sports teams. <\/p>\n

It was quite a year for the ladies, as the three teams recognized were the Junior Girls volleyball team, fall term soccer team, and spring term soccer team.<\/p>\n

The event was highlighted by a guest appearance from Gabrielle Daleman, Olympic figure skater and Pickering College alumna.
\nDaleman spoke to the students about dreams and goals, and how to achieve them. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout dreams, you\u2019ll never be able to get where you want to be. With dreams you have to set goals, smaller goals that build into bigger ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local residents Samantha Murphy, Amy Kavanagh, and Izzy Darvay-Canavor were on all three of the championship teams honoured, now in Grade 10. The athletes said Daleman is a well-known name in the halls of Pickering College.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s someone to look up to,\u201d said Kavanagh. \u201cYou just think that if you follow her path, you can do the same thing she did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having just turned sixteen a month earlier, Daleman was Canada\u2019s youngest representative at the Sochi Olympics. After earning a silver medal at the Canadian Championships in January, Daleman was named to the Olympic team in February.<\/p>\n

She competed in the individual figure skating event, where she finished 17th.<\/p>\n

Daleman still has a number of ties to the school – many of her formative years were spent at Pickering College, attending the school from kindergarten to grade eight. Her father Michael is a senior school teacher at Pickering, doubles as her figure skating coach, and the family lives on campus.<\/p>\n

While on camera in Russia, and with the local community looking on, Daleman smiled and said, \u201cHi P.C.!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cP.C. is like my second family, and I wouldn\u2019t be able to skate like I do without them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe morning after I skated in Sochi, my dad said \u2018you might want to look at your phone\u2019. The pictures from home were so overwhelming, I couldn\u2019t breathe. It was just amazing, seeing all the support.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speech was met with lots of applause from the student population of around 500.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always key to surround yourself with a good team, and here at Pickering College, you guys have a fabulous team,\u201d Daleman told the crowd of students. \u201cThe teachers who support you, your friends and other classmates\u2026they\u2019re key to your success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Gabrielle now attends Richmond Green Secondary in Richmond Hill, her brother Zachary is a 14-year old student at Pickering with figure skating dreams of his own. With his older sister as a mentor, Pickering College may be welcoming another Daleman as a special guest down the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pickering College in Newmarket was ripe with school spirit this month, honouring past and present students alike at an athletic banner-raising ceremony in the school gymnasium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/2014-10-16-13.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}