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ELAINE TANNER AWARD
for Outstanding Junior Female Athlete
Marie-Eve Drolet - Short Track Speed Skating
Nominated by Speed Skating Canada
Since Marie-Eve Drolet began skating as a five-year-old in Chicoutimi, Qué., where she continues to train and go to school, her progress in becoming the dominant junior short track skater in Canada has been sure, steady, and impressive. In a country noted for superb sprinters, Drolet stands out as the first Canadian to excel at the demanding longer distances, traditionally the bastion of the Koreans.
Last January, Drolet served notice that she is the future of short track speed skating when she became the first skater from outside Asia to win the women's overall title at the 2000 world junior championships in Budapest. Only 17 at the time, Drolet, who twice before had finished the competition in fourth spot overall and was looking to move up to third spot, was making her fourth straight appearance at the world juniors. Claiming the title on the strength of second-place finishes in 1500m, 500m, and 1000m and a fourth-place finish in super 1500m, the poised and confident Drolet credits her victory with the ability to ignore the competition, concentrate on her own race, and avoid panic when the races tighten up. Very strong technically, she never wastes energy, especially in the corners, and is blessed with an abundance of endurance.
Drolet's season ended prematurely last March when, leading the national team trials convincingly, she fractured a vertebra and was forced to spend the next three months in a cast. The powerful skater, whose slender frame proves that appearances can be deceiving, credits her love for her sport with helping her to quickly regain top form once she was allowed to resume training after four months of physiotherapy.
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