Charlottetown, P.E.I. (Oct 01/03) - One of Rankin's own is blazing a trail towards the Olympics -- the Junior Culinary Olympics that is.

After graduating from Alaittuq High in 2001, Kelly Clark headed for Holland College's Culinary Institute of Canada in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

After graduating from her two-year program this past May, she's back at the institute taking a one-year pastry program.

Two fellow students from Clark's school captured gold at a culinary competition in Toronto, earning the institute the right to select the Team Canada squad for the 2004 Junior Culinary Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

The team consists of four members and a spare.

"The chefs here at our school voted on the six people they wanted to try out for the three openings," says Clark.

"So, myself and five other people are now competing for those spots."

Being put in the running for Team Canada has opened the door to a number of opportunities for Clark.

The group of six will be meeting with the senior Canadian team and a number of highly regarded Canadian chefs in preparation for the big event.

Clark says there won't be any losers among the students, as all six will get to go to the Culinary Olympics in one capacity or another. She says the three who aren't selected to the official team will still get to enter as independents in the cold competition.

"The training will intensify as the year goes by, probably one day and then two days a week on top of our regular classes.

"After we get a little break, we'll start training every day in August.

"We'll also be entering as many competitions as we can, including functions in Halifax and Toronto, so we're going to be kept pretty busy."

The good news doesn't end there for Clark.

She and fellow student Tommy Archibald are in Chile this week representing Canada at the Port Amonta Salmon Festival.

This is the second year for the three-day event. Only schools in Chile were allowed to compete in the inaugural festival, but this year it was opened up to international competition.

Having a sister school in Santiago led to the Culinary Institute of Canada being asked to compete.

"We'll be in the actual competition, and we'll also be doing a few demonstrations on how we prepare salmon in Canada.

"Our head instructor was nice enough to give us four extra leisure days at the end of the competition to tour the capital, so it should be a lot of fun."