Young Indigenous girl hits the track and the high notes

Christina Hollingworth rocks back and forth, tapping her feet rhythmically as she nestles the shot between her neck and her shoulder.

In a crescendo of movement, her left leg orchestrating her body in a half-twist toward the landing area, she launches the metal ball into the air.

Even in the sport of shot put, the 12-year-old girl from Enoch Cree First Nation reveals her musical talents.

Hollingworth competed in the Alberta track and field championship in mid-July, winning gold in the shot put and discus events despite being a year younger than many of her under-14 competitors. She travelled to Kamloops during spring break to train with Olympic shot put athlete, Dylan Armstrong. 

"I want to get to the Olympics maybe one day, or nationals," she said on Thursday, a day ahead of the Western Canadian Championships in Sherwood Park.

"I want to go bigger and farther as I get older, and I want to get better."  

But Hollingworth's aspirations go beyond the field. She's also been recognized for her sterling vocals, singing O Canada in Cree at the World Indigenous Nations Games last summer.

"It's nice because I feel like I can show people a part of my culture and a part of what I am, because I'm not just one thing. I'm many things," Hollingworth said.

She performed the same rendition at the Seven Music Festival and the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the First Nation and the City of Edmonton last summer.

"I'm proud of my culture," she added.

Her mother, Corina Morin Hollingworth, said she's tried to ensure Cree remains a living language, after her own parents survived a residential school system that systematically tried to erase it.

"For me, it was important to have her understand that it was just as natural as speaking any other language," Corina said.

Christina was quick to name her Kokum, the Cree word for grandmother, when asked who where she drew inspiration.

"She managed to live a full life," she said. "She's one of my heroes too."

Christina had the chance to meet another one of her inspirations, Mohawk Olympian Waneek Horn-Miller, who offered the young trackstar some pithy advice.

"She said to me, 'think big, train hard.' And so I've kind of lived by that," she recalled, taking a brief pause from practice with the Capital City Track Club. 

Christina has embodied those four words, spending three days a week perfecting her shot put delivery at practice and competing on the weekends. In the evenings, she finds another kind of release in writing and singing her own songs.

"She's very dedicated, she works very hard," her coach, Rachel Yee, said. "Overall, she's just a very well balanced human being."