ROCKWOOD – Just keep training. That’s the mentality of a local athlete who has taken leaps and bounds on the track.
Cyclist Cole Dempster of Acton District High School recently was selected for funding through the RBC Training Ground event.
The RBC Training Ground triumph isn’t the first success in the young career of Dempster, a grade 12 student.
Now, the Rockwood native and 17-year-old, formerly a bronze-medalist in sprint at the Junior Worlds, has his eyes set on more international competition.
He says his training with the national team in advance of that event made him adore cycling even more, and it led to marked changes in his performance.
The fast-track funds towards Dempster’s Olympic aspirations come within a sport he stated he has long enjoyed, but has begun to find more fun in, in recent years.
For Dempster, cycling is one of many sports he’s competed in throughout his youth, and he says it quickly became his favourite.
This year’s training ground event, he added, was less pressure-packed for him than in years past.
2028 is the magic number for Dempster, the year he hopes to punch his ticket to Olympic competition.
The mindset, he says, as he looks to continue to work towards that goal, is to continue to work hard and improve.
