Sacha Skirzyk won big at the 2019 Western Canada Summer Games.

Sacha Skirzyk is a men's kayaker for team Manitoba who competed in this year's 2019 Western Canada Summer Games.

Skirzyk won big this year and was excited to share all about his experience at this year's Games.

One of the ways Skirzyk gets pumped up for his races is by listening to the band Manic Drive - specifically their song, 'Good News.'

Skirzyk has been kayaking competitively for four years. This was his last year at the 2019 Western Canada Summer Games but Skirzyk is excited to move on to the Canada Games in the coming years.

"We came away with the 35 medals we were hoping for, I got the eight gold I was hoping for," says Skirzyk.

Some of the highlights for 18-year-old Skirzyk were some great, "K1 (single kayak) finishes ...  and then some K2 (double Kayak) finishes that were pretty crazy!"

Skirzyk explained how good some of the finishes were, saying, "one of our shorter races which is usually won by point five of a second, we won by two seconds!"

In another race, the team came from behind and won the race by three seconds.

After coming home with 35 team medals and standing on the podium in all your own events, it might seem easy to get a bit overconfident. However, Skirzyk says it is important to "think reasonably about what you are doing with your future, stay focused, know that you still have to train hard because there is always going to be somebody faster than you."

Skirzyk is home for now but will not get much downtime as he is off to Nationals in Regina very soon.

"Canoe Kayak is not very well known in Manitoba," says Skirzyk, " it would be really awesome if more people started joining because then we could have bigger teams, more fun and more competitions in Winnipeg."

Skirzyk says because there is not a big Canoe Kayaking community here in Winnipeg he will often need to travel to his meets.

However, this is not always bad news, as Skirzyk recalls one of his career highlights so far was visiting the Cezch Republic for Olympic Hopes in 2017.