Filipino-Albertan competes in Olympic speed skating on Feb.10

Filipino-Albertan Gilmore Vincent Junio was “too small” for ice hockey and shifted to speed skating.

Thanks to his father who encouraged him to try speed skating in 2003 and 11 winters later, the 23-year-old Kinesiology major at the University of Calgary is scheduled to compete in the 2014 Winter Olympics on Monday, February 10, in Sochi, Russia.

He is entered in the men’s 500-metre Race 1 of 2 at 5 p.m. Sochi time (6 a.m. Edmonton time). Race 2 is set at 6:55 p.m. Sochi time(7:55 a.m. Edmonton time) at the Adler Arena Skating Center.

Junio’s first passion was hockey and started playing at the age of 7. Just like any other ice hockey-loving Canadians, he dreamed of making it one day to the National Hockey League but only to realize that playing hockey was not his calling.

So he focused on speed skating and signed up for the Calgary Speed Skating Club.

Then the results have become outstanding.

In 2007, Junio represented Alberta Province at the age of 17 to the Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse where he bagged 4th place in two distances and 8th overall against 19-year-old skaters. Then competing in the North American and Canadian Age Class Championships, he landed 2nd overall.

Then came the unavoidable.

Two weeks before the 2009-2010 Canadian Junior Championships, Junio was injured with compression fractures on his T5 and T8 vertebrae.

But he refused to give in.

He switched from short track to long track where the percentage of getting injured and the risk of falling is lower.
Two months later, he started skating for Canada and placed 4th in the 500-metre and 7th in the 1,000-metre at the Long Track Junior World Championships in Moscow, Russia.

In 2010, the Filipino-Albertan was named to Canada’s Long Track Development Team and saw action in four World Cups, clinching two medals in the B-Group 500-metre and in 2013, he joined the Canada’s Long Track National Team and landed 8th with a World Cup silver medal in the 2012-2013 season.

After that he wished to be representing his country to the Winter Olympic Games.

For a talented, determined and hard-working athlete, a wish can always come true.(pinoy edmonton news with reports from gilmorejunio.com, sochi2014.com)