The annual Jack Brow Memorial Track and Field Meet in Kelowna, B.C., is an important one for Yukon’s athletics team.
In the past it has provided some Yukon athletes with their first experience running on a rubber track with spiked shoes.
Over the weekend the meet gave experience to Yukoners in field events.
“We don’t have a proper throwing circle here yet, and we don’t have a proper javelin area, so they saw what a throw pit was for the discus and what the throwing run up for the javelin was,” said Team Yukon coach Don White. “So it was a bit of an eye-opener.”
It’s a good time to get experience with the Canada Summer Games beginning less than a month from now. Eleven Yukon athletes who will compete at the Games next month in Sherbrooke, Que. competed at Jack Brow, pocketing 11 podium finishes for their respective age divisions.
Yukon’s Emilie Oettli and Max Clarke are two members of the team who stand to benefit from the field experience.
Competing in the women 18-19 category, Oettli came second in the javelin at 17.51 metres, second in the discus throw at 16.35 metres and third in the long jump at 3.73 metres.
“It’s really exciting, but I still have a lot of work to do - a lot of technique training,” said Oettli. “It’s all about technique. If you don’t have technique, it doesn’t work out.”
Clarke threw to fourth in the discus at 27.67 metres and fifth in the javelin for men 16-17.
“It was a good experience,” said Clarke. “My personal bests are what I did at Jack Brow.”
Whitehorse’s Logan Roots, who will be competing at his second Canada Games next month, took in two first-place results in the men 20-34 division.
He won the 1,500-metre at 4:04.86 and the 5,000-metre at 15:36.43.
Teammate Logan Boehmer, who won the Yukon Five Kilometre Road Race Championships on Tuesday, wasn’t far behind. He ran to second in the 5,000-metre at 16:33.20 and third in the 1,500-metre at 4:27.29.
“I’m feeling pretty good, I’ve been putting in a lot of work and feeling focused and prepared,” said Boehmer. “We’ve been training six times a week with Logan (Roots) and Kieran (Halliday).”
The Rivard sisters, Anna and Odette, who are also returning Games athletes, were tough to catch in Kelowna.
Odette took first in the 200-metre dash and first in the 400-metre dash at 66.38 for women 20-34.
Anna took first in the 100-metre dash at 13.09 and second in the long jump 4.60 metres in the same age group.
Teammate Karter Kasakoff reached fifth in the long jump at 5.49 metres and seventh in the 100-metre at 11.95 for men 16-17.
Kieran Halliday hit eighth in the 1,500-metre at 4:24.16 seconds for men 16-17. He also posted a personal best of 9:26.36 for fourth in the 3,000-metre run.
“That was really nice. I’ve been trying to get that time down a lot recently,” said Halliday. “I’m trying to break nine (minutes) before my next year in high school. That’s what I’ve been trying to do and I think I can do it. Hopefully.”
Sam Bonar finished eighth in the 400-metre at 60.64 men 16-17.
Brody Smith place sixth in the 400-metre at 56.31 and ninth in the 800-metre at 2:12.39 in the same division.
Kate Londero placed 14th in the 300-metre at 48.24 and 16th in the long jump at 3.12 metres in the large 15-year-old girls division.
Dawson City’s Micah McKeage-Ferguson, who is not going to the Canada Games, came sixth in the long jump at 4.96 metres and 12th in the 100-metre dash at 13.02 for men 18-19.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com