Young rising soccer player Gurmaan Jhaj of Aldergrove was invited to attend the Olympic Development Program camp held at IMG Academies Bradenton in Tampa, Florida March 22 to 27.
About 150 of the best soccer players from all over Canada and USA in the U-16 age group attended the five-day camp. This camp is by invitation only, in which the soccer players get invited based on their performance in the Super Youth League.
Now a grade 10 student at Aldergrove Community Secondary School, Gurmaan has been playing soccer since he was a three-year-old. He played for Aldergrove Youth Soccer Club until the age of 11 before switching to Abbotsford Mariners to play in the Select League.
At the U-11/12 age group Gurmaan was a member of the Vancouver Whitecaps Soccer academy.
At the 2009 B.C. Summer Games Gurmaan was member of the Fraser Valley squad that won the Championship.
At the Metro Select level Gurmaan was member of the Abbotsford Mariners U-14 team that won the District Cup.
He has been one of the hardest working players for the ACSS Totems soccer team in high school soccer and is helping his high school basketball team too.
He is currently a member of the Magnuson Ford Mariners of Abbotsford, playing in the U-16 age group of the recently formed High Performance League.
With all his hard work and dedication to play soccer Gurmaan had a very good camp in Florida where he finished third overall in physical fitness testing and showed his skills in the training games. He was selected in the starting 11 of the ODP all-star game in which his team got an oppurtunity to play against the USA U-17 National team consisting of some very talented future MLS players.