Ontario Summer Games competitor shoots for gold
Toronto’s Victoria Hardin is hoping to use the Ontario Summer Games as a stepping stone to bigger things.
She’s shooting — literally — for a spot at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro .
You see Hardin is a skeet shooter. It’s not the kind of sport that immediately rolls off the tip of your tongue when you think about athletic events.
But for her, skeet shooting is just as mentally exhausting, requiring expert skill, concentration and stamina, as many of the other 28 events at these Games, hosted by Toronto for the first time, Aug. 16-19.
Nearly 2,500 athletes will compete at 26 different venues throughout Toronto, with some events being held in Oshawa, St. Catharines, Welland, Brampton and Caledon.
“You have to really be in a Zen meditated zone. It’s just like hitting a baseball or a golf ball over and over again,” said Hardin, 22, a medical administration student at George Brown College, who attended Wednesday’s 100 days to go ceremony at Nathan Phillips Square.