AIC Track and Field
COORDINATOR
- David Miles - milesda@marash.qld.edu.au
Congratulations to the 2020 Track and Field squad on yet another exceptional performance in winning the AIC Championships for the 6th time in a row. We are constantly the “hunted” at Marist College Ashgrove and in track and field this year our rivals particularly stepped up their efforts to dethrone our team as AIC Champions.
As mentioned at the start of this newsletter, this season had more challenges than ever before with COVID-19 causing a very busy third term where six different sports were vying for attention. The clash of these six different sports was something we have not experienced before during a Track & Field season. With the big participant sports of rugby and football on at the same time it was a challenge managing the health of our students and it certainly made life more difficult. Despite these challenges we all worked as hard as we could to provide a quality program across the term and throughout the September holidays that resulted in our victory last weekend.
I commend all students and staff on the impressive way in which they have continued their commitment to achieving this level of success and their ultimate goal of winning the AIC championships. The final margin of 95.5 points between 1st and 2nd was a testament to the hard-working students and coaches. Even with this impressive performance, there were still some quality athletes unavailable through injury, so it was fantastic to see some “new blood” contribute to an outstanding team performance. After the first day of competition on Friday and going into the major competition on Saturday, we held a 52-point lead over St. Peter’s Lutheran College. This margin was continually extended throughout the day as each score update was read out and our students continued to produce strong performances.
On days such as these, not everything goes to plan and not everyone can produce PB’s but the overall performance of the team was impeccable. The frightening thing for other colleges will be that we had several things go wrong on the day and with many athletes unavailable we look to be stronger than ever in 2021.
We mentioned the contribution of our staff at the beginning of the newsletter and I would also like to acknowledge the leadership of our 2021 captains. Our team captain, Tyler Galligan, was unfortunately unavailable due to injury but was inspiring in his leadership of the team throughout the season and at AIC with his motivating words and support of the team. It was sad that Tyler could not lead the team on the track because he was in unbelievable shape to break the College Open 400m record and that would have completed his track and field involvement perfectly. Tyler’s speech in accepting the AIC Championship trophy was reflective of the type of character he possesses. The AIC Executive officer and other heads of sport commented that it was the best speech they had ever heard from a sporting captain which was high praise indeed.
Harry Lyons and Carl Martin were fantastic in their support roles as team vice-captains and it was fitting that Harry could finish Year 12 by anchoring the dominant 6x400m all-age relay to victory and recording his sixth championship in a row. Carl competed in 6 events with three wins! We are very fortunate to have Carl back again in the 2021 Open team where we know he will be even better and very keen to continue the streak of the Track and Field team.
While we certainly congratulate the many event winners listed below, we would like to emphasise the importance of our full team approach to MCA Track & Field and recognise that we placed in the top three for 103 out of 146 events. A big part of MCA Track & Field culture is our TEAM and this is evident in these results. We look forward to celebrating the success of our team at the next College assembly.
2020 COLLEGE RECORDS
Tom Prole – 16 years 1500m record (set before injury)
New record – 4.14.01
Old record – L. Woollett (2011) 4.15.49
Dan Meggitt –16 years High Jump record (equal)
Equal new record – 1.97m
Old record – P. Jennings (1986) 1.97m
With the State Championships being held this weekend we look forward to hearing of more success for our athletes.
2020 AIC TRACK AND FIELD - CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS
2020 AIC TRACK AND FIELD - INDIVIDUAL EVENT WINNERS