A local cross country skier has applied for a grant that supports female athletes in Canada.
Sage Robine graduated from the Seven Summits Centre for Learning in the spring and is taking this school year off to concentrate on her skiing. In order to pay for her equipment, training camps and races, Robine has applied to the Champions Fund in hopes of receiving one of the twenty $5000 grants awarded to female athletes or sports teams by Dairy Farmers of Canada each year.
“This year I’m just skiing and working at the Trail Aquatic Centre as a lifeguard, and then next year I’ll probably go to school somewhere, I’m not sure yet,” says Robine.
“I have to get a new pair of skis this year, a new pair of skate boots,” she added. “The camps and races add up to a lot so usually it’s about $300 to $1000 for a camp or a race, so [the grant] will be going towards all of those things I’ll be attending throughout the year.”
Robine found out about the Champions Fund when she received an email from Cross Country Canada.
“They sent out an email, I guess, to all female cross country skiers letting them know that there was this grant that they could apply for and so as soon as I saw it, I was like ‘Yes!’” explains Robine.
The application progress is relatively simple. Applicants create a page on the Champions Fund website where they have a limited number of characters to answer four questions and where they can add pictures of themselves in action and a YouTube video, if they have one. They’re then encouraged to share their applicant page via social media.
“It was like super simple. There’s no essay or any of that sort of stuff that you often have to do with these sorts of things,” says Robine.
As part of her answer to the question “How would the grant help you push the boundaries for women and/or girls in sport?” Robine wrote, “As a female cross country skier, I recognize how difficult it can be to reach the top level of this sport. There is only one woman on the Canadian cross country World Cup team.” Asked how it makes her feel knowing there’s only one woman on the team, she said, “It’s kind of daunting.”
Robine has also noticed that male athletes tend to get more media coverage. “I don’t know the statistics or anything like that on this, but I feel like — especially this being an Olympic year — in the media you often see a lot of focus on men’s accomplishments and what the men are doing in sports and any changes on their side of the sport, but not a lot of focus on women.”
Asked what her goals are for this ski season, Robine said she’d like to podium at a Haywood NorAm event and keep improving. She trains all year round and has been doing dry land training since the first week of May to help her reach her goals. “Roller skiing, running, ski striding — we did three camps in the summer, two of them were on snow,” Robine explains. She’ll attend another two training camps this fall before the ski season begins.
Robine will find out whether or not she’s received the grant in November. If you’d like to offer her your encouragement, visit womenchampions.ca/champions-fund.