By Andy Pfeiffer, RSS Athletics
Thirty Eight members of the Revelstoke Secondary School track and field team traveled to Kamloops to compete in cool, damp conditions last Saturday in the Battle of the Border track meet. With athletes from around the province competing, for the RSS track team the results showed a balance between rookie athletes who have something to prove and veterans who wanted to get a taste of early season competition.
Peter Behncke, who finished second at the national last summer, led the veterans of the team as he easily broke Dave Boruch’s RSS hammer throw record by more than five metres with an impressive 55.56 meters thro with the 12 pound hammer. Not far behind was Chris Andrews, who finished in third in the nation last summer. In shot put Andrews threw an impressive 13.34 meters in the senior boys category to finish first and make a statement that by the time he hits grade 12 he might be able to break David Meehan’s 15.59m RSS shotput record – a record that has stood since 1968.
Among the rookies, Jeremiah Haddad turned some heads finishing first in the 100, 200, and 400 metre races. In jumping, hard work by rookie coach Sarah Vincent paid off when Nick Flick took the top spot in both the long jump and high jump. Other rookie winners on the team included Mitch Kovacs and Katrina Andrews in the shot put, Kasia Humphreys in the discus, Robyn Rourke in the grade 8 javelin, and Takara Tompkins in the junior javelin.
RSS coach Rob Brown’s work with the distance runners yielded some impressive results. In the middle distance events, newcomers to the team Gina Cinelli and Felix Knopp both finished second in their 800m races, with times of 2:42.58 and 2:17.63 respectively.
As a whole, Revelstoke Secondary was a dominant force fielding by far the biggest team at the meet and scoring more top results than any other school.
Up next is the Legion Meet in Trail on Saturday, May 4, when a bigger group of RSS track athletes hopes to continue its success.