MARYSTOWN, N.L. – Lucas Antle did what he set out to do at the Special Olympics Canada Summer Games.
He also came home with three medals.
“My goal was to make friends and I feel like I’ve done that,” he told The Southern Gazette at Kaetlyn Osmond Arena on Monday, Aug. 6.
Antle, a resident of Frenchman’s Cove, was invited to take part in festivities for Marystown Day a day after arriving back in the province from Antigonish, N.S., where the Games were held from July 31 to Aug. 4.
The 24-year-old picked up gold medals in the mini javelin and the shot put as well as a silver medal in the 100-metre team relay.
Winning the medals was “great,” Antle said.
“It feels like I’ve accomplished something and I made some people very proud of me,” he said.
Antle’s mother, Darlene Price, was there to greet him at the airport in St. John’s upon his return with the other athletes from Team Newfoundland and Labrador.
“It was pretty phenomenal. It was a very special moment,” she said.
Price said he found out about Antle’s first medal win for the mini javelin while at work.
“I guess the residents where I worked might have thought I was gone crazy because I just starting screeching,” she said. “I was crying so much.”
She received a call from his coach, Rosemary Ryan, to tell her the news. She also spoke to her son.
“He was really excited to tell me he had won a gold medal,” Price said.
Antle, a member of the Marystown-based Special Olympics Burin Peninsula North Bears, summed up his experience at the Games as a positive one. He said the event gives people with disabilities the opportunity to compete and show what they can accomplish.
“Even though they have a disability they can persevere through that,” he said.
Antle, who also competes in snowshoeing, said he hopes to make it to the next Special Olympics Canada Winter Games in 2020.
