A Drumheller cyclist is gearing up for the Canada 55-Plus Games.
The Games are coming up on August 23-26 in Kamloops, and Jim Milman will be competing in the cycling event.
Milman represented Zone 2 at the Alberta 55-plus summer games in the Peace Region from June 16-19. He earned silver in the Men’s 75-plus 20k Recreational Road Race and silver in the Men’s 75-plus 10k Recreational Time Trial. A silver medal earns a spot at the national games.
Big Country Senior Sports Society, known as Zone 2, encompasses Drumheller and stretches from the Saskatchewan border to the B.C. border, north to Sundre and south to Okotoks, surrounding the City of Calgary. While more than 120 individuals qualified to compete in Peace River, the final contingent was just over 80 participants. This group was successful in finishing tied for third place.
While Milman is the only local heading to the national games to compete, others faired well at the Alberta Games.
Zone 2 was successful in winning seven Gold, four Silver and four Bronze medals in the Photography and Crafts competitions. Margaret Nielsen won bronze in the landscape photography, man-made structure category. Another interesting connection is Darryl Reid of Natural Light Images adjudicated the qualifiers.
In 55-plus open singles cribbage, Jessie Irion placed sixth, and Leslie Storch placed seventh. In 55-plus Open Doubles in cribbage, Wendy and Lloyd Laughlin placed eleventh.
Zone 2 team bocce team, which includes Linda Traquair, won bronze in a tiebreaker march.
“The best thing is everybody says they had fun. We don’t emphasize medals as much as we do getting together,” said Zone 2 President Linda Traquair.
Over 900 athletes competed at the games.
The next summer games will be a little closer to home. Brooks is hHosting the 2023 Alberta 55-Plus August 17-24.
“I’m sure we’ll have a big team going here, and we’ll have to start qualifiers all over again,” said Traquair.

Drumheller was crawling with seemingly extra-terrestrial machines over the weekend as 12 post-secondary teams from the United States and Canada descended upon the community to compete in the 2022 Canadian International Rover Challenge (CIRC).
CIRC is hosted by the Canadian Space Technology Advancement Group (CSTAG), and the 2022 challenge marks the fifth summer competition held in Drumheller.
“The teams put in a phenomenal amount of work to put the rovers together, they work about one to two years to put them together,” shares CSTAG Director Justin Gerein.
CIRC challenges students to design and build a teleoperated rover to compete in several challenges simulating a disaster on a Martian settlement, and the unique landscape of the Badlands offers an otherworldly stage for the competition.
Teams will compete in a total of five challenges, including a night-time simulated search and rescue mission. Challenges were held at other locations, including Midland Provincial Park and the Badlands Community Facility (BCF).
Mr. Gerein says the organization has tried to plan for a winter competition for the last few years, as the cold temperatures would add another level of challenge for the design teams; these plans have not yet come to fruition due to external challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
He adds the Town of Drumheller has been very supportive of the challenge and hopes to attract more public spectators and interest in the future.