Hello, My name is Beth Smith and I am a grade 12 student at Riverside Secondary. This year I’m looking forward to graduating and competing in long track speed skating for Team BC at the 2022 Canada Winter Games in PEI.

Here are some of my favourite quotes:

“Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy” – The Eagles

”You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life’    -Winston Churchill

I like all of these quotes for different reasons. One is a line from one of my favourite songs and reminds me to trust myself and not overthink, one reminds me to stick up for what I believe in and be my own person, and the other just makes me smile.

I used to have a video of an Olympic race in this spot on my “About Me” page that I appreciated the symbolism of. Now that I have reached a high enough level of skating to compete at professionally recorded competitions, however, I am able to use a video of myself instead. WEC was a competition in early October and overall it went well for me, mostly thanks to this race. Unfortunately, it started out as one of my worst races. From the beginning until about lap 6 I was in the back half and getting lower in the pack by the minute until everyone except for me and the girl in first place fell. I didn’t expect to catch her. I didn’t even expect to get closer, but I sped up because I wanted a good time, and I passed her the corner before the finish line, winning the 1000m category for my division in the process.