Courtesy of Bernie Puchalski at the St. Catharines Standard:

When Kayla McGowan first joined the Niagara Olympic Club more than a year ago, she was always getting beaten by the more experienced distance runners at the club.
“They had all been doing it for a long time and I was very intimidated by them,” said the Grade 10 student at Eden in St. Catharines. “I always let them win and I would trail behind.”
All that began to change last spring when she was seventh in both the 1,500 and 3,000 metres in the midget girls division at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations track and field championships. A second in the 3,000 metres and fourth in the 1,500 metres at this past summer’s Athletics Ontario championships has brought out the competitiveness in the 15-year-old.
“At practices I don’t let people pass me,” she said. “I have to win now. The feeling of winning is so good that I don’t want to give it up.”

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