Above: Legal’s Arinn Young – File Photo
by Morinville News Staff
Twenty-three-year-old Arinn Young of Legal is one of 24 Canadian wheelchair basketball athletes heading to Lima, Peru for the Parapan Am Games Aug. 23 to Sept. 1 in the hopes of grabbing a spot for the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
Canada’s men’s team needs a Top 3 placement to qualify for the 2020 competition, while Young and her Women’s Team need to be in the Top 2.
Canada’s women’s team finished fifth at the world championships last year. At the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Canada was also fifth overall.
The task is doable for the women, who won silver in the women’s wheelchair basketball tournament four years ago at the Parapan Am Games.
Young and Cindy Ouellet will co-captain the team in Lima, where the squad will feature seven Paralympians (Gavel, Hawtin, Jacques, Ouellet, Lalonde, Steeves, Young) and five newcomers to multi-sport Games (Bérubé, Dandeneau, Lai, Llanes, Tessier).
Both men and women will compete in Group A in Lima for the preliminary round alongside Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia. The top four finishers in the women’s event will move onto the semifinals, while the men’s tournament will see all eight nations re-seeded for the quarter-finals.
Arrin Young and her Women’s Team schedule is as follows:
August 24: Canada vs. Colombia WOMEN
August 25: Canada vs. Argentina WOMEN
August 27: Canada vs. Mexico WOMEN
August 29: Semifinals WOMEN
August 30: Gold and bronze medal games WOMEN
Morinville News will provide updates as they occur this August.
Good luck Arinn!