If you’ve ever dreamed of becoming an Olympian or are interested in seeing how your fitness levels stack up to athletes between ages 14-25 across Canada, the RBC Training Ground is your chance. On Saturday May 10, at the UW PAC gym, student-athletes and fitness enthusiasts seeking a chance to be scouted as future Olympians put their skills to the test.
What is the RBC Training Ground?
As per their website, the RBC Training Ground is “a talent identification and athlete funding program designed to find young athletes with Olympic potential, and provide them with the resources they need to achieve their podium dreams.” Qualifier events are open to all athletes between 14-25 years and at the events, athletes complete four fitness tests: 30m sprint (speed), isometric mid-thigh pull (strength), vertical jump (power) and the 20m shuttle run (endurance).
My experience
After participating in the RBC Training Ground back in 2021, 2022, and 2023, I was excited to participate after missing the 2024 qualifiers due to an ankle injury. This time, I changed my approach. I had put in a great deal of training in the pool, at the gym, and through ice skating over the past year. Rather than pressure myself to achieve a certain number in each test, I eased off the self-imposed pressure and approached it with the intent to give it my best — nothing less. That approach showed in my results and after the tests were complete, I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment in not only my athletic abilities, but deeper than that, it was having the self-confidence today to trust myself and trust my body to give it my all. Sometimes, we get so caught up with comparing ourselves to benchmarks, defining ourselves by numbers and statistics, that the joy and passion that drives our best results is lost to the mental clutter of worries and pressure. This year, participating in the RBC Training Ground at my home university, the University of Waterloo, was comforting in the sense I was familiar with my surroundings, which in turn, further reduced feelings of overwhelm.
We started off with the sprint test. After a test run, we had three attempts at each test to give it our all. I felt confident in my sprinting, having trained in 100m and 200m sprints back in high school track and field, so I felt I had a little background to help me in the test.
The next test was a vertical jump. I had been getting back into plyometric training gradually after my ankle injury and felt confident I had established enough strength and power for a strong vertical.
The strength test has always been the toughest for me, not being a fan of weight training. I wasn’t too excited for this test initially, but my mood changed when one of the RBC Training Ground representatives asked me how I felt, I found myself saying “I feel like I can do it!” His ability to encourage me and joke later that it looked like now, I was starting to have fun here, lightened my mood and any worries I had about performing well in the strength test. With a fist bump and good luck, I moved on to the beep test.
The 20m shuttle run (more commonly known as the beep test) was always the event I performed best at and it remained the one I knew the most discomfort awaited. One of the staff encouraged us all to keep in mind that the beep test often becomes a psychological test, as we push ourselves past what we think our bodies can handle, which he stated “is what makes an Olympian.” I was proud of my ability to push to my very limit and further impressed by my score, which went from an 8.7 in 2023 to a 9.1 in 2025.
As I looked back on my results, which became available online on the RBC Training Ground website, I compared them to my 2023 and 2022 results and was proud that for nearly every test, I had improved. There’s no doubt there is always room for greater improvement in any discipline, but knowing we are continually moving forwards can inspire us to stay disciplined when things get tough.
I left the RBC Training Ground both inspired by the athleticism of those around me and proud of my personal improvement. Perhaps deeper than any of this, I realized that it is the heart and passion that we put into what we love that drives us to achieving the best results — be it in athletics, academics, or daily life. With confidence, courage, and determination, challenges fall away and possibilities reawaken as we become the strongest, truest versions of ourselves.
Wherever athletics takes us — be it on an Olympic stage or running through neighbourhood trails, the resilience and self-belief that comes with every workout continually reminds us that the greatest accomplishment in athletics has always been the changes that occur within us.
