INUVIK
Four swimmers from Inuvik are heading to the North American Indigenous Games in Regina later this month after earning a reprieve from organizers.

Grade 8 student Julienne Chipesia is one of three Inuvik swimmers heading to the North American Indigenous Games in Saskatchewan later this month. There are at least 10 athletes from Inuvik who have qualified for the games. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

The swimmers, including Julienne Chipesia, thought they had missed their chance to attend the games in Regina, Saskatchewan, when a decision was made to cancel the swimming event due to a lack of certified swim officials.

That decision was announced June 24 and posted on the North American Aboriginal Games website.

During an interview July 8, Chipesia said, that decision had just been reversed, much to her relief and that of her teammates.

"They were going to take it out, but they've decided to keep it for this year," she explained. "It had me worried. I was surprised when they took it out, since there's 4,000 athletes that are going to the games. I was really worried I wouldn't be able to go to NAIG. It was a last-minute decision."

The swimmers are part of a contingent of more than a dozen Inuvik residents heading to the games, making the town well represented. That shouldn't come as a surprise, since Inuvik is well known for the quality athletes it produces in many sports.

Two athletes have qualified to compete in volleyball and five softball players are attending as well. A complete list isn't available but track and field athletes, as well as basketball players, are going as well.

Chipesia is a multi-talented athlete who also competed in the Arctic Winter Games in the snowshoeing events.

She said her coach, Vince Brown, asked her to try out for the games qualifiers earlier this year, along with other members of the swim club.

"We had to beat all of our personal bests to qualify," Julienne said. "When we went to the meet, we had to beat the records our coaches had recorded for us."

Chipesia succeeded in doing that, along with five other swimmers, in February. In May, they had to try out one more time, with four qualifying for the games.

Chipesia swims in the freestyle and backstroke disciplines in a variety of distances from 100 metres up to 800 metres. She qualified in all of those events.

Her favourite is the freestyle 400-metre event, Julienne said.

"That's probably my best event too.

"I'm really excited to go and compete against the other swimmers," she said. "It takes a lot of dedication to try out and practice for both games."

She said she had to thank her coaches, Brown in particular, for much of her success. She's also trained with Jeff Amos for snowshoeing.

"I've put a lot of hours into my training, and we've trained four times a week for swimming. For snowshoeing, I trained almost every day in the evenings. Then it's hard to keep up with your school work and keep your grades as high as you can.

"It takes a lot of sacrifices," she added.

The games run from July 20 to 27.