Prince George, B.C. – Dozens of local athletes between the ages of 14 and 25 put their skills to the test at the Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre over the weekend.

They were there for the RBC Training Ground – the Canadian Olympic Committee’s program which aims to bring new and undiscovered athletes into Canada’s Olympic talent pool.

Athletes were put through four different physical activities testing their power, speed, strength and endurance.

“The essence of this whole thing is that there’s a lot of kids that are active in sport in general, but not many of the kids understand how good they are in the truest physical sense,” said Kurt Innes, a former Olympian and now the director of talent development with the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific.

“We’ve got 11 national sports organizations who have come in and partnered with the program and they understand these physical tests are the building block of most high performance.”

He said the top 100 athletes from regional qualifiers across the province will participate in a final event at the Richmond Oval on March 4.

Innes says the grand-prize winner gets a trip to see the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in 2018 while up to 10 kids will get some support from RBC for up to three years to help further their Olympic aspirations.

(Below – 17-year-old PGSS student Dawson Williams warms up).

One of those with Olympic aspirations on Saturday was 17-year-old Dawson Williams, an archer and student at Prince George Secondary School. Last summer he came in sixth at nationals.

“I heard about this online and I thought it would be a good thing for me to do because I’m shooting at a pretty high calibre for that.”

Tim Carmack, RBC’s regional vice-president says the company’s involvement is related to its commitment to youth as well as the Canadian Olympic Program.

“We’ve been the longest corporate sponsor of the Olympics since 1947 and this is building on that. What we’re hoping to do is to identify, develop and support Team Canada’s next generation of athletes.”