Local Figure Skater, Dave Sargent and his skating partner Kelly Clements win a silver medal at the Winter World Masters Games in Austria.

The 2020 Winter World Masters Games (WWMG) were held in Innsbruck, Austria last week and the ice-dancing duo competed in three events taking the home the silver medal in the free dance.

With only a year and a half of practice together Sargent and Clements have had a lot of success so far. This is the third competition for the pair and they recently won a gold and silver medal in Lake Placid in October 2019.

Sargent who's turning 60 this year keeps in top physical condition by training several times a week at the Wildrose Figure Skating Club in Calgary. He skated for many years but took a break after having some difficulty with his hips and knees.

Sargent recently laced up the skates in 2018 after a call from a coaching friend encouraging him to join up with Kelly Clements and the pair started practicing together and learned some new ice dancing routines.

Sargent says he and Clements worked really hard to achieve this success.

"We skated 4 times a week together and we did very well getting our unison and getting our tracking together."

He says they had some help with the choreography.

"We had Bernie Ford help us put our free dance together and that's where we medalled at the silver level and we also did quite well in Lake Placid achieving a gold."

He says he is really proud of his achievement and this makes a really nice 60th birthday present.

Sargent's daughter Talia is their coach and traveled with them to this recent competition, She also coaches at the Okotoks Figure Skating Club,

The WWMG runs every four years and is recognized by the International Olympic Committee for motivating adult athletes of all ages from all over the world with a minimum age as the only entry criterion.

The event was attended by 563 figure skaters spanning ages from 28 years old up to 83 years old.

More than 3,100 athletes from 58 nations participated in the games in twelve different sports, including skiing, figure skating, speed skating, ice hockey and curling.

 

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