Sylvia Ross is a Grade 10 student at Kingsville District High School. She started running track in Grade 4 at Jack Miner Public School and continued throughout her elementary school years where she showed exceptional abilities in both track and cross country running.

In addition to winning races on the track and the trails, Sylvia enjoyed the team atmosphere and competing with her school team every year until the COVID pandemic arrived.

While COVID was challenging for her with all school and extracurricular sports put on hold, the disruption to her athletics really began with the teachers’ strike in late 2019. The track season that year was in jeopardy because of the strike and, by 2020, it became necessary to look for options to keep running with peers.

By the summer of 2020, an option emerged. Sylvia was introduced to the Windsor Legion Track and Field Club (TFC) and she began training with Coach Dave Scarrow and other girls her age.

Her first competitions after COVID were the school track and field meets in her Grade 9 year where she advanced to OFSAA West but missed qualifying for OFSAA.

In Grade 10 she qualified as an individual for OFSAA cross country and her Junior Girls team also qualified, a great accomplishment for the team! Sylvia placed 71st in that meet.

This past winter was the first winter season free of COVID disruptions. Sylvia was able to move her training indoors at the University of Windsor with Windsor Legion TFC.

She set a goal to qualify for OFSAA Track and Field and her KDHS track coach, Mr. Gelinas, encouraged her to beat some school records. She worked hard, she was committed to her training and she met her goals!

Sylvia competed recently in Ottawa in the Junior Girls 3000m at OFSAA. Her goal was to place 10th and to improve her personal best. She did it! She placed 10th overall and set another personal best, improving her time by 9 seconds.

According to Mr. Gelinas, Sylvia is the only long distance athlete to represent the school at OFSAA in recent years.

Sylvia’s family and friends are very proud of her dedication to training and setting personal goals. She has achieved great results for herself and had the honour of representing her school at the Provincial Championship!