The GSSD held their annual track and field meet Friday morning at the Yorkton Regional High School's Century Field and at the end of the day, four records had been broken.
Says Mark Schendel of MC Knoll and event co-ordinator: "We had four records shattered this year."
One of the students ended up breaking two of them; one being his own which he had set earlier in the day during time trials.
For Steven Ste. Marie of Saltcoats School, it was just one of those days, one of those days where everything apparently went right.
Schendel said Ste. Marie stepped up to the plate in the bantam boys' 100-metre where he set his first record in the qualifier. His time was 12.12 seconds, says Schendel.
Then when it came to the finals, Ste. Marie trimmed nearly .20 seconds off his own record and finished with a time of 11.95 in the same event.
MC Knoll student Bailey Pelchat set the next record in the pee wee girls' 200-metre setting a new meet record of 30.84.
In bantam girls, Quentina Wapash of Dr. Brass in Yorkton finished with a new meet record of 8.48 metres in shot put, Schendel says, before adding that Wapash broke a record which stood since 2007.
Finally, Joaney Starblanket, also of Dr. Brass threw for 7.79 metres in midget girls' shot put, also a new meet records.
Schendel, who likes to get philosophical whenever talking about how kids this age should be given every opportunity to perform both inside and outside of the classroom, told YTW that this track meet is an excellent example of that.
"We encourage each and every athlete to do their best. It's a unique opportunity throughout the year. This is another example of that."
Schendel also added that it is that time of year when people expect to see something in the newspapers about track season, especially considering how short the season is.
"Five hundred kids took part this year-amazing," says Schendel shortly following the final races of the day came to an end.
The Yorkton schools that took part were: Yorkdale Central Elementary School, Columbia School, Dr. Brass Elementary School, and MC Knoll Elementary School, with Springside, Calder and Saltcoats included as well, says Schendel.
He added that this year, the schools decided to make it mandatory for their students to take part in this, which ended up being a beautiful day for track and field.
"All seven schools took the approach of making it a mandatory meet for Gr. 6-8it's an entire day of phys ed.," he added.
"We're proud of this."
Events included: the distance events and the field events. Distance includes 100-metre sprint, 200-metre sprint, 400-metre sprint; the long distance events: 800-metre and 1500-metre. Field events were long jump, triple jump, high jump, shot put and discus.
"It's a fun, yet competitive day," Schendel observed.
WHAT'S NEXT
The GSSD Yorkton and Area District track meet is the first of two major track dates on the Yorkton city calendar. The field should be jam packed once again when the East Central Districts take place at Century Field.
Schendel said that schools were divided into two teams for the meet that took place last Friday morning. The Yorkton Urban Middle Years team and the Yorkton Rural Middle Years. Both teams may send 50 kids to the East Central Districts, based on results of the Yorkton and Area meet.
