The Surrey-raised Aniamaka brothers have triple-jumped their way onto Team Canada for the 2025 Junior Pan American Games.
Siblings Praise, 21, and Divine, 20, are among 20 history-making athletes — 12 women, eight men — headed to Asunción, Paraguay in August as the first Canadians to represent the country in athletics at a Junior PanAm Games.
They're also the first brother duo to represent Canada in the same event at such a high-level competition, for U23 athletes.
Both will be going for gold as members of a "small but highly talented team of athletes," as head coach Carmyn James calls the four sprinters, a hurdler, seven middle- and long-distance runners, four jumpers, three throwers and one combined-event athlete.
Now training and studying at different U.S. universities, Praise is a senior (fourth year) student-athlete at Purdue while Divine is currently a sophomore (second year) at Milwaukee.
"Both brothers are dedicated to triple jump and they exude positive energy," James told the Now-Leader. "I am greatly looking forward to supporting them at the Junior Pan American Games and watching them make magic while wearing the Maple Leaf."
Growing up, the Aniamakas both trained with the Vancouver Thunderbirds club while attending Pacific Academy in Fraser Heights.
The elder Praise got into track first, naturally, with coaching by Iuliana Kroeger and others along the way.
"A lot of athletes don't go searching for triple jump, because I think triple jump finds the athlete," he said during a conference call with Divine. "It kind of fell in my lap. I went to a competition when I was pretty young, 11 or 12 years old, and I jumped significantly better than I thought I would, without much practice. My coach was like, 'Hey, we see that working out in your future.' After a couple years of training I was breaking provincial records, national records, and I guess the rest is history."
Divine closely watched his brother, then tried track himself.
"I wasn't all that great at other events so eventually I had to try it," he said. "It worked out for me."
Kroeger recalls those early track days for the brothers.
"As a young athletes they tried different events because that's what we do in track and field," she said. "After that we kind of look and see what their strengths are. I thought these these boys could be very good jumpers. They were good at everything, but triple jump in particular, they were very good, so we decided to work more with them."
After both Aniamakas were nominated May 6 to compete for Canada at the PanAms, Kroeger said she's proud of her work to help get them to the next athletics stage nationally.
"They always won the national championship and always come back in summer and train more with me, and always send me videos of their training and asking me for advice, what I think," she said. "They keep in touch all the time."
Kroeger says she can see both brothers competing for Canada at the Olympics one day.
"Yeah, for sure," she said, "but they still have to work on it, both of them, because they are kind of the same level now, and actually Divine, the younger one, jumped better in the winter than Praise. They're both hoping to jump better this year so they can make the world championships and hopefully Olympics. The standards are high, they still have some work to do, but definitely that's something that they'll work towards."
On that path, Praise was selected to the Athletics Canada's CAPP program in October 2024, "as an athlete who we feel has the realistic capacity to represent Canada on the international stage at future Olympic Games and World Championships," coach James noted. CAPP stands for Canadian Athletics Performance Pathway.
"For me," Praise said, "the next Olympic games will be three years from now in Los Angeles, so I'll be 25 that year and I think that's, like, right in my prime and I'm really hoping to give that a shot. It's on my radar for sure, sooner rather than later."
Of the Paraguay-bound team members, nearly all have previously represented Canada on a U20 national team at either a World Athletics U20 Championships or a Pan Am U20 Championships, James explained, "but none of them have ever been to an international multi-sport Games. Competing at the Junior Pan American Games will provide valuable experience in preparation for a future Olympic Games.”
Divine earned bronze in the men’s triple jump at the 2023 Pan American U20 Championships with a 15.25-metre jump. Last year he won the 2024 Ashton May Invite for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a personal best of 15.58 metres, and also secured silver at the 2024 Horizon League Championships.
“My goal on the field is to compete to the best of my ability and hopefully come home (from Paraguay) with a medal," he said. "That's always the goal. You're there to compete, that's what you're there for. It's also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I just really want to enjoy the experience, take in the sights, meet lots of new people, and make memories that last a lifetime.”
Although they're at different universities, the brothers talk a lot and continue to push each other as triple jumpers.
"Like, I never want my little brother to be better than me," Praise said, "and I think he's done a really good job chasing me and breaking records in his own right. It's been pretty cool to be, like, the country's top two jumpers in Canada this year — I mean, so far. There's a lot of good jumpers just getting started, so we'll see how it turns out."
Meantime, back home in Surrey, the Aniamakas' former Pacific Academy school team had a banner-winning couple of days at the South Fraser regional track and field championships, May 20-21 at South Surrey Athletic Park, winning Overall, Senior Boys, Senior Girls and Grade 8 Boys titles. Next up are the 2025 B.C. track and field championships, June 5-7 at McLeod Stadium in Langley.
Of note, the Junior Pan American Games were first held in 2021 in Cali, Colombia, but Canada didn't send a track & field team. This summer in Paraguay, from Aug. 9-23, more than 4,000 athletes under 23 years old from 41 countries will compete in 28 sports. This edition will offer 216 direct qualification spots for the Lima 2027 Pan American Games.
