Sherbrooke, Quebec named host of Legion Nationals

2021-2022 Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships: 3-day competition for U16 and U18 athletes

/EIN News/ -- OTTAWA, Dec. 10, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Royal Canadian Legion’s Dominion President Thomas D. Irvine is proud to announce the next host city for the Legion Nationals is Sherbrooke, Quebec. Competition will take place at the new track in the outdoor stadium at l’Université de Sherbrooke.

“We know these games will be outstanding in the hands of our Sherbrooke organizing committee,” says Irvine. “We’ve come to expect the best from our hosts and we appreciate all they do to plan and present an amazing event each year.”

Host partners for the 2021-2022 games include Club d’athlétisme de Sherbrooke, in collaboration with the City of Sherbrooke, l’Université de Sherbrooke, Excellence Sportive Sherbrooke and Destination Sherbrooke. The host Legion Branch is #06-010 Colonel John S. Bourque.

“The Club d’athlétisme de Sherbrooke and its many collaborators are delighted to have been chosen to host the Legion National Track and Field Championships in the summers of 2021 and 2022,” says Yannick Richard, President of the Club d’athlétisme de Sherbrooke. “This will be an opportunity to showcase our renovated infrastructure for the benefit of Canada’s best young athletes. We are proud to be given the opportunity to present this national calibre event for the sixth and seventh time in our history. Rest assured that we intend to deliver the highest quality championships, in terms of the sporting competition and the organization of the event itself.”

Several communities interested in hosting the Games submitted high-quality bids.

“They all offered an excellent experience for our youth track and field athletes, and in the end we chose Sherbrooke’s proposal,” says Legion Sports Committee Chair and Dominion Vice President Brian Weaver. “We’re really looking forward to working with our new hosts in 2021.” The competition will take place from August 6-8 in 2021, and August 5-7 in 2022.

The 45^th and 46^th years for the event will see close to 1,000 athletes from across the country competing in Canada’s only track and field championships for the under 16 and under 18 age categories. The world-class competition grew from Legionnaires’ support and promotion of youth sports as a healthy activity to help children whose fathers or mothers were serving abroad, or had served in the Canadian Armed Forces. The Legion later developed local, provincial and national youth athletic programs, which now culminate in the games.

“The Legion Nationals give Canada’s youth a chance to take part in a top notch competition while developing new friendships in a fun environment,” says Weaver. The 2020 Games will take place once again in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, which hosted the 2019 Championships.

The Legion’s Dominion Command sponsors hundreds of athletes each year, with the support of branches and provincial/territorial commands from across the country.  Several hundred other youth join as open athletes. Many Legion alumni later go on to compete at the international level.

Learn more:
www.LegionNationals.ca

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/LegionNationals

About The Royal Canadian Legion

Founded in 1925, the Legion is Canada’s largest Veteran support and community service organization. We are a non-profit organization with a national reach across Canada as well as branches in the U.S., Europe and Mexico. With close to 260,000 members, many of whom volunteer an extraordinary amount of time to their branches, our strength is in our numbers.

Public Relations & Media: PublicRelations@Legion.ca

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youtube.com/user/RCLDominionCommand

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/97c6a7b6-1026-4bbb-9a3b-dc4947f411c2