Phillips family shares the National Games stage

If your last name is Phillips, there’s a good chance someone in Medicine Hat has been cheering for you this week.

Sisters Arianna and Natasha Phillips are competing in athletics for Special Olympics Team BC. Their cousin Lornita Phillips is in the pool. And keeping up with all three is a travelling cheering section of about 10 family members who made the trip from British Columbia in camper vans.

For Arianna, 23, National Games are familiar territory. She has competed at three and represented Canada at the Special Olympics World Games Abu Dhabi 2019. But having 17-year-old Natasha beside her for her first National Games has made this one different.

The sisters have been Special Olympics athletes since they were young and now train together in Nanaimo. They know when the other needs a push — and they’re not above a little sibling competition, either.

Asked to name her proudest moment as an athlete, Natasha had an easy answer: “Beating my sister in a race.”

For Arianna, that sisterly push comes in handy somewhere around the 800 metres.

“She’s the reason I make it through with my 800s,” she said. At one meet, when Arianna was close to stopping, Natasha kept her moving: “She’s like, ‘No, keep going. You’re almost there.’”

In Medicine Hat, there has been plenty of reason to keep going.

Arianna earned silver in Division 1 of the pentathlon with 1,157 points, setting a personal best of 4.90 metres in the running long jump — 29 centimetres farther than she had ever jumped before.

She wasn’t expecting it.

“That’s my personal best overall, which is amazing,” Arianna said. “I cried.”

For an athlete who admits, “I’m always in my head,” having her younger sister nearby has helped. And this week, Arianna has had the chance to watch Natasha find her own success on the national stage.

Natasha made her National Games debut count, earning four medals across six events: gold in mini javelin, silver in shot put and bronze in both the 100m and 200m. She also helped Team BC to silver in the 4x100m relay alongside April Armstrong, Jenn Ferrier and Victoria Hogan.

The Phillips medal count doesn’t stop at the track.

Across the road at Big Marble Go Centre, 15-year-old Lornita collected six medals in the pool, including gold in the 25m backstroke, 25m breaststroke and 4x50m medley relay, plus three silvers.

“We have a cousin that’s here and she’s swimming and she’s doing amazing over there,” Arianna said.

With all three competing, their family has been on the move, too. Younger siblings, grandparents and other relatives — easy to spot in their matching “Phillips Family Supporter” shirts — have been bouncing between venues all week.

For Arianna and Natasha, having them here makes sharing this experience as teammates even more special.

By the time the Phillips family points the motorhomes west again, there will be plenty coming home with them: medals from the track and the pool, new personal bests and a week of memories they got to make together.

For the Phillips family, it was well worth the drive.