It’s not that often that a provincial champion emerges from the Westlock area, but one local boy has jumped out from the crowd.
Aiden Properzi, 8, won in his age group at the Rope Skipping Alberta Provincial Championships in Leduc April 26-27, earning the right to go on to the national competition in Abbotsford, B.C., this weekend, May 16-19.
And if that wasn’t impressive enough, Properzi achieved all this after just one year of competitive skipping with the Bonnyville Skiparoos — his family just recently moved to Westlock.
For those who aren’t familiar with the world of competitive skipping, it features several different categories of competition.
“We do 30 seconds of speed, so you go for 30 seconds as fast as you can,” Aiden explained.
“Then you do double-unders too, and if you mess up you have to sit down.”
“They individually compete in what they call Masters, which is the individual competition for the kids,” his mother Hollie added. “There are four different events and he won gold overall in the Masters.”
Aiden achieved more than 60 jumps in 30 seconds for the speed category, did 76 “double-unders” in the power category, and jumped a whopping 184 times in two minutes for the endurance category.
“The last one is a freestyle, so they make up a routine to music and do various tricks, cartwheels and jumps.” Hollie said.
Aiden also competed in some team events as well, including various kinds of synchronized routines. His team placed mostly second and third in those events, but that wasn’t too big a deal since he prefers the individual events regardless.
He got involved in the Bonnyville club after his former kindergarten teacher Mrs. Gibbons urged him to join — she had skipped as a child and along with some other community members, wanted to start a competitive club.
“Since we moved (to Westlock) we’ve been practicing with the Redwater Ropers, just to keep up his skills and practice a bit more,” Hollie said.
She said she’d like to be able to get a competitive jump-rope group going in Westlock, as well, as there isn’t currently anything competitive.
The best part about the sport, she added, is the sense of camaraderie the athletes enjoy, regardless of which team they represent.
“Whenever we go to the competitions all the kids are teaching each other tricks,” she said. “The sportsmanship is just amazing.”
Aiden’s motivations for taking part are understandably a lot more straightforward: “It’s just a lot of fun.”
