The Pan American Skeleton Championships are being held in Lake Placid, New York, this weekend where Calgary’s Hallie Clarke is hoping to continue her winning ways.
Clark started out her sports life as a figure skater growing up in Brighton, Ontario, but when the family relocated to Calgary in 2018, she decided to give skeleton a try.
“I happened to just walk across a ‘Learn to Push’ sign in WinSport,” she said, “and I had to google what skeleton was. Then I was like, ‘that sounds so Canadian!’ And then I tried it and I never stopped.”
This past weekend, Clarke slid into the record books after winning the Skeleton Junior World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland. In Feb. 2024, she won the senior title in Winterberg, Germany, and with those victories, Clarke became the first athlete ever to hold both the senior and junior world championship titles at the same time.
“Still doesn’t feel real,” Clarke said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever really grasp what that means.”
The 20-year-old said she was surprised she was able to win the senior title event.
“My goal at some point in this quad was to win junior world championships,” she said. “The fact that I did the senior world championship first – that was not in my plans at all.
“(But to be honest), I felt like I really accomplished this one thing that I set out to do and then the other just built a newfound confidence I think to help me with that.”
Clarke’s goal is to compete in the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Italy. It would, she admits, be a dream come true.
“I always knew that’s what I wanted to do,” she said. “That was my thing, like, ‘I’m going to to go to the Olympics!’
“I always thought that it was going to be in figure skating, (because) that’s what I did growing up.
“I watched it on the TV and I wanted that to be me. The sport has changed, but the dream has not,” she added. “So honestly? It would mean everything.”
