Track club competes at provincials
By Woodard, Dale on March 5, 2020.
Dale Woodard
Lethbridge Herald
The Lethbridge Track and Field Club has taken a flying leap.
That’s hardly a bad thing.
The club was out in full force for the 2020 Alberta Indoor Track and Field Championship last weekend in Edmonton at the Butterdome at the University of Alberta Universiade Pavilion.
“We had 11 athletes participate, which is a big increase in previous years,” said Brendt Lukinuk, president and coach of the Lethbridge Track and Field Club. “We’ve been gathering momentum. We had a number of fourth-place finishers and some fifth-place finishers in the finals.”
There were two bronze medals from the locals as Kieran Schmidtke posted a personal-best time of 9:19.01 to place third in the men’s 3,000-metre run in the U18 division.
In the Masters Women 35-49 category, Heather Tuckova clocked in a personal best 5:38.57 to grab the bronze medal.
The 2020 Alberta Indoor Track and Field Championship is a non-qualifying meet.
“You just have to be a member in good standing of your club,” said Lukinuk. “But we’ve been promoting it heavily amongst the team and there has been an energy that has come from some of the young athletes getting together and training together during non-practice times as well.
“They’ve created quite a good social network among the athletes within the club and I think that’s the primary reason, besides the adults and coaches promoting going to some of these meets. We’ve got an energy going now and with 11 people there, there is definitely some team spirit that is being built prior to and at the meet.”
The Lethbridge Track and Field Club consists of members from ages 10 to adult.
“The ones competing this weekend were between the ages of 13 and 16 and then we had one masters,” said Lukinuk.
Athletes can choose which events they want to compete at during the indoor season, said Lukinuk.
“We had one event at the Butterdome in January in Edmonton which was the Golden Bear Meet. So that was a highlight meet and we had a handful of athletes attend that. There were a couple of meets in Calgary that were attended from November through March. So on and off, some of the athletes have attended two or three meets and some did one. But this (provincials) was the highlight of our indoor season.”
Lukinuk said registration numbers were up for the indoor season.
“In fact, in November when our season started there was such a good response that we had to put a limit on it. We were just touching that limit and had a few inquiries a little bit late that we had to turn away just based on space and coaching. Track is gaining some energy.”
The Lethbridge Track and Field Club now transitions to the outdoor season starting in April.
The returning athletes will register in the middle of this month with the club accepting new entries later this month.
Those interested can visit http://www.lethbridgetrack.ca for registration information for the outdoor season
“We just love track and field and we want to see that people know about it and can participate, as many as we can take,” said Lukinuk.
The following are the results for the Lethbridge Track and Field Club members.
Women 300m dash U18
Jordyn Musial, 46.68, 28th
Women 60m hurdles U18
Preliminaries
Jordyn Musial, and 10.32, sixth
Finals
Jordyn Musial, 10.18 (personal best), sixth
Men 60m dash U16
Lucas Authier, 7.63 (personal best), fourth
Men 300m dash U16
Lucas Authier, 39.82 (personal best), fourth
Men 1,200m run U16
Dominic Kwasny, 3:57.51, 12th
Isaac Witkowski, 4:11.37 (personal best)
Lukash Tucek, 4:14.56, 16th
Men 2,000m run U16
Dominic Kwasny, 6:50.75 (personal best), sixth
Lukash Tucek, 7:09.31, ninth
Isaac Witkowski, 7:40.16 (personal best), 7:40.16, 10th
Men 600m run U18
Erik Amelinckx, 1:28.08 (personal best), fourth
Men 1,000m run U18
Erik Amelinckx, 2:45.81 (personal best), fifth
Carson Gallant, 3:00.60 (personal best), 10th
Kaysan Mohamed, 3;01.63 (personal best), 11th
Myles Norton, 3:21.24 (personal best), 13th
Men 1,500m run U18
Kieran Schmidtke, 4:19.22 (personal best), fourth
Erik Amelinckx, 4:21.35 (personal best), fifth
Carson Gallant, 4:48.26, 14th
Myles Norton, 5:23.45 (personal best), 19th
Kaysan Mohamed, 5:24.04, 20th
Men 3,000m run U18
Kieran Schmidtke, 9:19.01 (personal best), bronze
Erik Amelinckx, 10:05.68, seventh
Women 35-49 1,500m run masters
Heather Tuckova, 5:38.57 (personal best), bronze
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