The elite from Air Blastoff, Track North and Lo-Ellen Park were all doing their thing but it was surely the next wave of local track & field talent that were truly thrilled to showcase what lies ahead as Sudbury athletes ruled at the District H Legion Track & Field Meet Saturday at Laurentian University.
A total of 19 meet records were broken, the overwhelming majority by youngsters who were competing at their home town track as Legion officials prepare to bring the strongest team seen in these parts for quite some time to York University on July 11th and 12th.
Fresh off a fifth place finish in the novice girls 80m hurdles at OFSAA, Rowan Frood is certainly far more synonymous with hockey, a long-time member and provincial gold medal winner with the Sudbury Lady Wolves program.
But with a pair of first place finishes and new records established in both the U16 200m hurdles and 80m hurdles events, Frood is clearly expanding her athletic resume quite notably this spring and summer.
“I started (track) at Northeastern Elementary and did pretty well from grade six to grade eight,” said the first year student at Lo-Ellen Park, now donning the Air Blastoff singlet. “This year, I learned how to hurdle and started to become more passionate because I think it’s my best event.”
“I’ve done hockey for a really long time so my leg strength and overall strength from hockey has helped me with my speed in track and field.”
But as many have come to know, speed is but one of the ingredients that would allow one to excel when it comes to the hurdles. “The first thing I learned was my position over the hurdles, working on my lead leg going over first and my trail leg coming quick afterwards,” said Frood, the eldest of two children in the family.
“We start by walking over the hurdles, just to get the feeling of going over; then a light jog and so on.”
All of which means that Frood had raced less than a dozen times when the opportunity arose to tackle the Ontario elite at the high-school championships earlier this month. That said, things had changed greatly from her first meet in North Bay in May.
“My overall speed and my trust in myself, my confidence had definitely improved a lot as I went to OFSAA,” she said. Blessed with a varied athletic background – Frood enjoyed competing in equestrian shows in her youth – the local talent currently sees a fit in both the long and short hurdle distances, registering an 11th place finish in the 300m hurdles at OFSAA.
“I like the long hurdles because I have pretty good stamina to push myself between the hurdles,” she said. “But I did pretty well in the 80m at OFSAA, so I am starting to like them both equally.”
Air Blastoff teammate Amanda Syncox also enjoys the hurdles, though it’s hardly a deal-breaker. The talented 16 year-old also walked off with a pair of gold medals and new records, just barely edging out Nadia MacDonald in both the U18 400m hurdles and 400m race.
The results were just the latest in a mid-season upswing for Syncox, building towards a very busy summer with an eye on the Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships in Calgary from August 8th to the 10th.
“I wasn’t really performing as well as I would have liked, but come NOSSA and OFSAA, I picked it up a little bit,” stated Syncox. “I had a 1:06.30 in the hurdles two weeks ago but knew I had more in me. I knew I wasn’t hurdling great.”
“I knew that I had a chance to chase Nadia today and see what I could do.”
In two of the closest finishes of the day, Syncox out-leaned MacDonald in the 400m hurdles (1:04.85 vs 1:05.00) and was just a little further ahead in the 400m (59.01 vs 59.49). Either way, it’s clear that the in-club competition benefits them both.
“When we got to the start line, it was whoever wins is fine – we know that we were going to go Blastoff one-two,” said Syncox, also a senior at Lo-Ellen.
“On the track, it does go from a team sport to an individual sport, but going to practice every day, knowing I have someone to 400m hurdle with, to talk about form, talk about what we need to do is amazing.”
“I love being able to do all of my workouts with her.”
All in all, Syncox is in a good place when it comes to seeing progress in a highly technical discipline. “I’m working on getting over the hurdles more smoothly,” she said. “I’m a little too high. It’s about staying low and not wasting energy being too high.”
“It’s something that we are continuing to work on.”
Other local record breakers included Melina Doiron (U18 – 200m/100m), Jacob Paille (U18 – 400m), Marcus Laframboise (U18 – 110m hurdles), Lily Bignucolo (U18 – 1500m), Mackenzie Roy (U16 – 1200m), Nadia MacDonald (U18 – long jump), Cameron Young (U18 – pole vault), Ava Bebawy (U14 – 300m), Nehemiah Esmie (U14 – javelin), Joshua Doiron (U14 – discus), Ariah Wilson (U14 – discus) and Jack Brandow (U12 – high jump).
Many of the names above will be part of the 40-athlete regional delegation that will compete at the Ontario Legions in July, with the team rosters as follows:
Female – Under 18Melina Doiron – Joely Angus – Amanda Syncox – Nadia MacDonald – Barbara Ceccon – Brooke Wylie – Evany Ashcroft – Emma Culin
Male – Under 18
Bradley Raine – Jacob Paille – Narayan Shukla – Carson Jewitt – Raphael Belzile – Anderson Parent – Dayne Meyer – Owen Olivier – Isaac Longston – Sebastien Brassard – Chesley Godwin – Damon Belanger
Female – Under 16
Annabelle Richardson – Andreena Pizzoferrato – Alea Culin – Rowan Frood – Mila Beljo – Lia Paille – Gore Shea – Isabelle Popp – Annie Buell – Rya D’Amour – Lexi Dubreuil – Mackenzie Roy
Male – Under 16
Kurtis Weldon – Mikko Leinala – Gilles Guignard – Xavier Aubertin – Maxime Belzile – Guillaume Daoust – Nehemiah Esmie – Julian Luoma
