International Women’s Day – Vanessa Keefe

Friday, March 8th is International Women’s Day and to celebrate, Sport PEI would like to recognize some of the women who are actively representing PEI as athletes! We asked them how they feel about being a leader for young female athletes on the island and what message they’d like to share.

Oyster Bed’s Vanessa Keefe has been racking up the accolades in recent years, earning back-to-back Sport PEI Junior Athlete of the Year awards in 2022 and 2023, before capturing her second straight OUA gold and her first silver from U SPORTS this past weekend. She took home gold from the 2022 Canada Games and her 2023 freshman season at Brock University included an OUA gold and U Sports bronze.

The Brock sophomore had her first chance to represent Canada at the Under-23 world championships last October, narrowly missing the podium and vowing to be back for more in the future. Keefe has followed a similar path to her older sister Veronica, who also won a Canada Games gold and competed for Concordia University and Wrestling Canada in her year.

Keefe is a dedicated student of her sport, pushing for feats she’s seen from her sister and beyond – she hopes to see more young female athletes do the same.

“Keep striving,” said Keefe when asked what message she has for young female athletes. “Goals always seem unrealistic at first, but the closer you get, the more you want to work for it.”

Sport PEI is also hosting a “She’s Good” event, sponsored by Maritime Electric, on Friday at Bluefield High for girls in grades 8-12. For more information, contact lboudreau@sportpei.pe.ca. To register, click here: