Representing your country in one sport is dream enough for many local athletes. Sandy Espeseth has done it in two. Basketball was her first love. The Maple Ridge Secondary graduate was a key player on her senior girls basketball team when it competed in the BC championships in her Grade 12 year. Sandy also attended Eric Langton and Mt. Crescent Schools and was involved in track and field during that time. She went on to play guard for the University of Victoria's women's basketball team throughout the 1980s.
But the pinnacle of her basketball career came in 1985 when Espeseth became a member of Canada's senior women’s basketball team, staying with the national squad until 1988. These days, Espeseth is finding athletic success not with a bouncing ball but with the swiftly spinning wheels of a racing bicycle. A 10-month cycling tour of Australia and New Zealand three years ago turned her on to the thrill of cycling and, in 1998, she started riding in competitive road races. In 1999, Espeseth found herself representing her country in sports once again, this time in cycling as part of a five-woman Canadian team which competed with some of the best long distance road racers in the world in the women's Tour de France.