The Special Olympics Canada Winter Games is coming up in February of 2020! 

The national multi-sport games for athletes with an intellectual disability happen every four years and this year it's taking place in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Shawn Jesse is the head coach for Alberta's cross country ski team and he says that two athletes from Cochrane and one from Canmore and will be amongst the athletes representing Alberta at the nationals.

"On our ski team, we have Eloise Stewart and Brock Jesse from Cochrane who will be competing in a mixture of freestyle and classic, and we have athletes competing across all the distances offered; from the short 500 metres to 10k. Eloise is a veteran; she's in her forties and has competed in several provincial, national and world games. Brock Jesse is twenty and he has competed in both provincials and nationals."

The athletes will be busy participating in training camps all weekend long, in preparation for their upcoming competition.

"On Saturday we're out at the Canmore Nordic Centre, the snowshoe team will be at Elizabeth Barrett in Cochrane and then we're having dryland training classroom sessions at the SLS Family Rec Centre on Sunday. We're going to be working in the gym, and at the classroom sessions we have a sport psychologist and motivational speaker and we also have a local nutritionist that will be giving a presentation to the athletes."

the Special Olympic Winter Games includes eight winter sports in total: alpine skiing, 5-pin bowling, curling, figure skating, floor hockey, snowshoeing, speed skating and cross country skiing.