Only a few people ever get to the national level in their chosen sport, but a Salmon Arm woman has reached this goal in four different ones.
Gerri Kiy has always been active, playing mainly team sports in her childhood, but even before her first national competition in junior fastball at age 20, she was hooked on sports.
During university, her volleyball team won the playdowns in 1979, allowing her a second national competition. After university, volleyball continued to be an important sport in her life. Her dedication paid off in the 1980s.
When the senior level provincials were held in Alberta and the nationals in Vancouver, Kiy was there.
“We came fourth,” she says. “We never won a national championship. But that’s Ok, that’s pretty rare.”
Kiy grew up with two brothers and two sisters. It was an active family and they encouraged each other’s competitiveness.
Her siblings would arm wrestle with one another for fun, but it wasn’t until many years later that this play paid off. During a lull as an umpire at a Sicamous baseball game she noticed activity between the bleachers.
“I noticed there was an arm wrestling competition,” Kiy recalls, “and I was bored… I thought, ‘oh, I’m going to check that out.’”
She won and her husband, Dirk Kiy, encouraged her to keep going.
“The nationals were in Kelowna two months later,” she says, so with past sporting victories still vivid in her mind, she competed in the national arm wrestling championship.
“There were only two categories, up to 145 lbs and open.”
She had to shed five pounds before qualifying for the light entry. And it surprised her a bit when she came in third place.
“It was just a bizarre event,” Kiy says of the competitors who were seen smoking just before a match. But she says being successful in this event has a lot to do with timing and strategy, as well as strength and determination – all of which Kiy has plenty of.
She credits her high school coaches for inspiration and developing a different appreciation for sports.
“It wasn’t just ‘be aggressive,’” she says, but enjoying the cerebral aspect of any sport.
At just over 50, nearly five decades of sport has made Kiy more aware of the truth in her personal mantra: make life happen, don’t let it happen to you.
Kiy welcomed her latest challenge when, in 2009, she was invited into a competitive curling team for senior women.
“She was pretty much a social curler,” said coach Darryl Horne when he met her and formed the team with his wife, Kate, Hetty Burt, and Wendy Cseke.
According to skip Cseke, with a combination of support from Curl BC, great coaching and leadership from the Hornes, for a group of ‘senior’ women with a strong competitive streak, “the sky’s the limit.”
While it might not always be about winning for Kiy, it is about trying her hardest. While relatively new to competitive curling, she excels in sports because it’s who she is, says her coach.
“Gerri’s an example of someone who took the opportunity when it was presented to her and worked her way up to that (competitive) level,” Horne says.
For their team, Kiy’s personality adds well to the mix.
“She’s a really fun person. She’s a riot, a lot of fun,” and it’s what the team has come to expect from her, even during competition, Horne says.
“There’s one thing in common across all competitive sports,” Horne says, “the mental or strategic side,” which, in curling has been compared to a game of chess.
Horne notes that reaching a high level in multiple sports helps develop fine motor skills and overall physical fitness.
Kiy loves curling, the strategy of it, as well as the low-impact workout from the slide and the delivery. She says the physical workout is misunderstood by people who don’t curl.
While she had hoped her team would have performed better than fourth place at the provincials in Kamloops, it’s not disappointment you hear in her voice.
“We were on the wrong end of several games (barely lost),” she said, adding that “it was disappointing to not curl to our potential.”
She says the social aspect of curling, and other team sports, is a big attraction for her, while the weekly practice keeps her busy.
“But it’s not just about being busy… It’s about filling my day with something meaningful.”
Since her husband Dirk died in 2008, it’s been more important than ever to have meaningful things to do.
“I don’t do sad well,” she says.
She will continue curling practice until the season ends. After that, you’ll see her on the baseball diamond, or perhaps the golf course – until curling starts again next fall.15:34:51