BY J.M.Lee
Prabhnoor Kaur Grewal is a 16-year-old girl who pioneered the Punjabi community into speed skating in 2019 and remains the first and only Punjabi speed skater in Canadian national age class winning positions. Her latest achievement is national 3rd position among under 16 females came with two bronze medals (1000M and 1500M) in 2023-2024 Canadian Neo-Junior (14-16 years) Short Track Championships.
She competes nationally and trains in Group A of the Elite Athlete Pathway program at the Calgary Olympic Oval. The training is from May to March, six days a week, and she completes 8-12 training sessions each week.
A dedicated athlete, Prabhnoor has been a shining example of commitment to speed skating on and off the ice. Born and raised in Surrey, she has made the Indo-Canadian community proud. Her unwavering desire to improve every day, coupled with her mental flexibility and resilience, has led to numerous medals at important National competitions, as well as Provincial and Regional levels. Her coaches have noted her relentless pursuit of improvement in physical and technical skills, with her ultimate goal of participating in national events, and competing at the highest level in the Olympic Oval pathway.
In the 2019 BC Long Track & Short Track Championships (Provincial), Prabhnoor became the 1st Punjabi athlete to get Provincial medals in British Columbia. She was then a student at Khalsa School Old Yale Road. Around 800 students and their teachers honored her following her second-place performance. Students created signs welcoming her back to school and congratulating her on the championship. Kamalpreet Kaur Baga, Principal Khalsa School Surrey (Old Yale Road Campus), said that Prabnoor brought honor to their school and the community. “This achievement marks her as the first Punjabi Sikh athlete in BC’s long track winter sports history,” Baga explained, saying that Prabhnoor’s father and mother played critical roles in her success.
“I’m thrilled even though I didn’t get gold because I’m looking forward to getting the gold next year,” she says. “I began ice skating in 2012 at the age of four. Once I started improving, it was in 2016 that my dad wanted me to try speed skating. From there, I kept improving and progressing and getting faster and faster.”
In August of that year, Prabhnoor and her father went to the rink in Fort St. John to train with some Olympians. “I wanted to go further as a speed skater, make it to the Olympics, and win a gold medal,” she expressed this desire then.
Only 4 to 5 Indo-Canadian kids follow it as a professional sport. It is not expensive, and there are resources available. This was how the then 11-year-old Prabhnoor realized her skating skills.
“As a family, we used to go to many drop-in sessions,” she says. Prabhnoor’s liking for sports started with hiking and gymnastics. She began ice skating at the age of 4. During one of her sessions at Langley, she got introduced to Eden Green, the speed skating Olympian from BC. Prabhnoor got more involved in skating from there.
She was competitive from the beginning and started getting better. In 2018, she qualified for BC short track speed skating, and in 2019, she won silver in long track, and short track, making her community proud.
In February 2020, Prabhnoor was the first Punjabi to represent the Province of British Columbia in a national speed skating championship (Long Track, in Red Deer, AB). Unfortunately, Prabhnoor had four falls in five of her races, one at the finish line in a promising third position. In March 2022 Canadian National (Western) Short Track competition, Prabhnoor won 3 medals, Gold (Team Relay); Bronze (400M) and Bronze (3000M Points Race).
In April 2022, Prabhnoor was selected by the Calgary Olympic Oval and was formally invited to train in the Elite Athlete Pathway, a multi-layered program designed to develop athletes for Olympic potential. At this time, Prabhnoor was the youngest Olympic Oval have ever accepted in many recent years.
In February 2023, Despite being so young and based on a fraction of a second, Prabhnoor made it to Team Alberta Short Track (Womens) to represent Alberta at the 2023 Canada Winter Games, which are held every four years in Canada to deliver an Olympic-like experience to top national athletes. Prabhnoor did not get any medals and ranked 4th in Team Relay. She ranked as 17th, 18th, 19th and 21st positions among 43 under-18 female Skaters in Canada who participated in the Canada Winter Games.
In April 2024, after training for two years in Group B, Prabhnoor was invited to train in Group A. Under the management of Canadian Olympic multi-medalist Jonathan Guilmitte, current head coach Elizabeth Ward has been coaching Prabhnoor along with Maggie Qi and Patrick Duffy who have been supporting her with the best possible plan and care.
From July 01, 2024, Prabhnoor will enter the Junior category (16-18 years old) for the next three years. She must continue to excel in achieving top spots among Canadian juniors to represent Canada internationally. Technically, a 19-year-old who was 18 on June 30 would still be a Junior. In this dynamic, it will take relentless hard work, ultimate focus, and consistency in growth and development in every aspect.
Speed skating is Canada’s most successful Olympic sport, with primary elite training centers in Montreal, QC, and Calgary, AB. The sport has two types: Short Track (on a 111M track in an International Size Rink) and Long Track (400M Ice Track in International Oval buildings). Team Canada (Short Track) trains in Maurice Richard Arena Montreal, and Team Canada (Long Track) trains at the Olympic Oval in Calgary. These places are the training grounds for other elite and national skaters. Montreal is home to a better competition environment in Short Track because of the concentration of skaters for decades.
Every year, ‘Speed Skating Canada’ selects the top elite Juniors with the potential to represent Canada and names them ‘Next Gen’ skaters. Canada allocates a few resources to Next Gen skaters who can train in Calgary or Montreal but under the guidance of National coaching protocols.
The Calgary Olympic Oval is a high-performance training center that provides an elite training environment for Canadian and international speed skaters. As an ISU Centre of Excellence based in Calgary, Canada, the Olympic Oval offers a demanding and highly structured training program to develop athletes who will become competitive on the national and international stage.
Calgary Olympic Oval manages one of the world’s most fine-tuned programs to develop world class athletes by incorporating advance technical and technological elements of kinesiology and the sport. Training groups are based on specific criteria to maximize the training efficiency. Age, athlete development, and results are taken into consideration. Group formations are not set in stone but consider individual factors.
Group A – 16 Athletes
- Top six male + top six female athletes according to 2022-2023 national ranking.
- Four discretionary positions based on athletic abilities and fit within the group.
Group B – up to 24 athletes
- Current program athletes have priority
- Remaining positions available to be filled according to the applications received
- If there are more than 24 athletes, they will be ranked based on their submitted times and the strength of each candidate.
- This does not include part-time/drop-in athletes.
Our thriving Indo-Canadian communities across Canada are still missing our contribution at the higher levels of Canada’s rich culture of Winter sports. Our children and families shall explore more about various winter sports including Speed Skating, Snowboarding, Skiing, Curling, Biathlon. As Prabhnoor carved her own way to shine the community in speed skating, any of our Indo-Canadian children can shine in any path they chose.
