Two Pronghorn athletes win athlete of the year award

The University of Lethbridge Pronghorn Athletics celebrated their 56th Blue and Gold Awards on Wednesday. It recognizes the accomplishments of Pronghorn athletes from this past season. Pronghorn Nationals Champion Jinaye Shomachuk took home one of the athlete of the year awards for Women’s Track and Field.

“Having thrown 18 flat last year was really, really nice, and it’s just I’ve just continued to build off of that. And being able to PB, get a personal best so many times this season, it’s good to know that all of the hard work that I’m doing is constantly better in my performance.”

Chris Alexander took home the award for Men’s Swimming. He broke the Pronghorn’s record in the 50 and 100 metre backstroke this year after having reconstructive surgery on his foot. He says returning to swimming following his accident was quite the challenge but was thankful for the help of his coach.

“I’m lucky I had my coach there the entire time he kept me in the sport. There are a lot of different things that I could have been doing, and he kept me focused. Yeah, it was a challenging time.”
Alexander says he will continue with swimming during his final year of studies and hopes to beat more records next year.