Inspirational Athletes

Clara Hughes is amazing. Her list of accomplishments could easily fill this page. One that stands out for me is that she's one of few athletes in the world to ever medal in both summer and winter Olympics! Amazing, I know! She's very passionate about promoting sports for kids and donated $10,000 to Right To Play after winning gold at the 2006 Winter Olympics in the 5000 m. I was fortunate enough to meet her at the Champions for Children Dinner. She spoke passionately about how proud she is to be Canadian and how sport really changed her life. Very cool. It just goes to show that you can achieve anything if you set your mind to it.

I would like to say Thank You to Sport North for putting on such an amazing event. They brought up Clara, along with 2 other Olympians up to help raise money to allow kids to participate in sports.

Clara & I, look at the ton of medals she has!

On another note, my good friend Mike Gilday just qualified for the World Cup Circuit in Short Track Speedskating. He's killing it this season and I'm really stoked for him. Check his blog here: http://mgilday.blogspot.com/. Congrats man!

As for myself, I'm getting ready for when the mountains turn white. I'm back home in Yellowknife now for a while. I've been planning out my season and there is so much cool stuff going on, I can't wait! I'm currently working on my sponsorship proposal to help me fund my upcoming season. I'm lucky that the NWT community has been very supportive of my athletic career. If you, or someone you know, are interested in supporting me please contact me via email: andrewmatthews4@gmail.com.

Here are some photos from a recent workout at Body Works. Francis Chang has recently sold the original gym in Yellowknife. After so many years it's still a great place to workout! Thanks Francis for your support over the years!

I remember one time I was doing this one time with a few girls around and I slammed on the hard wood!

After meeting with my physiotherapist Andree on my recent trip to BC, I have a bunch of new core X exercises.

That's all for now folks!

Andrew

Wakeskating!

Howdy!

I've been meaning to update my blog for a while now. There's a lot of things I want to post about so instead of doing one massive post, I'm going to do a few shorter ones here with lots of photos.

Here are some pictures from a wakeskating (like wakeboarding but your feet are not attached to the board) session (possibly the last of the year??) with my family a little while ago. Wakeskating takes a lot of balance and board control, its also a blast!

Wetsuit weather is officially here in YK

Bryana, smiling her entire run :)

Practicing my switch front boards for winter

Face plant!

Front board(slide)

- A M