August 1 - 15, 2016
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY
A19
Two Pinays off to Ecuador Pan-Am Games
By Alex Mino
Shalene Lee and firsttimer Amelie del Rosario
join the contingent of Team
Canada consisting of 88
athletes and 5 national team
coaches in the upcoming
2016 Cadet Junior PanAmerican Championship to
be held in Guayaquil,
Ecuador on August 2223.
The
eighteenyear-old Shalene vowed
to perform at par with
the world’s best to fulfill
her dream of achieving
excellence.
“We had the
best training camp last
month and to qualify for
this competition gives
me more motivation to
surpass the results I had
last year,” said Lee, who
has Indonesian descent
from his dad.
She seems satisfied
with the way the competition
turned out in the 2015 edition
of the annual event, but
wanted to prove to herself
that there’s still more to come
to achieve her goal.
“I’m more focus right
now and studied all the moves
of my opponent, so I hope it
will lead to something good in
this year’s event,” she added.
She didn’t expect to
get the bronze last year
considering all the tough
competitors from different
countries, but the experience
she had in the provincials
helped her a lot.
will be somewhat a sort of
baptism of fire for thirteenyear-old Amelie to showcase
her martial arts skills in PanAm Games.
An exciting experience
awaits for Amelie since it will
mark the first time that Karate
Canada will send
old and she actually enjoyed
it.
“ It’s funny , my wife Lea
and Amelie were supposed to
watch karate competition in
Holly Burn Family Recreation
Center in West Van, when
suddenly one official offered
us to enter our daughter in
Lee noted that she
needs to beat her own self and
get all the grade A chances to
subdue the opponent, and
more importantly, level up the
effort to the next level.
Mom
Edna,
who
currently works at WorldMark
by Wyndham is very supportive
of her and even joined the trip
last year in Bolivia.
On the other hand, it
a representative in the 12-13
years old category in kata
event.
The young lass is not
actually a neophyte in this
sports discipline, having
numerous gold and silver
medals tucked under her
belt.
According to her father,
Rowell, Amelie started to join
karate as early as five years
the actual competition, so we
accepted the offer,” declares
Rowell, who currently works
as chef in Westin Bayshore.
Amelie’s first glory in
this event came a year after
she joined karate when she
won gold in the provincials
at age six and followed it up
with strings of win in the zone
competitions.
Her recent success was
WWW.PHILIPPINEASIANNEWSTODAY.COM
a third place finish in the 2016
US Open held in Las Vegas
last March.
Big brother Rhemwell
was her biggest inspiration
in continuing to display her
prowess in this event, since
the latter was into martial arts
as well.
Like Amelie,
Rhemwell was a
winner in his own
level after garnering
silver
medal
in
kumite event in
nationals last year
held in Richmond.
Today (August
18) the whole Del
Rosario clan will fly
to Ecuador for the
most awaited event
of Amelie.
The
threeday junior national
training camp was held
last July 17 in Toronto and
immediately after that , Karate
Canada officially announced
the members of Canadian
team, where Shalene was
chosen to compete in her
category while Amelie will
be introduce in the youngest
age-group level.