THE record book of the Mount Isa Athletics Club is now looking a little fuller after the club’s first Retro Day of the year.
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Retro Day was introduced in 2014 to give the athletes an opportunity to experience events that aren’t apart of a normal club day such as pole vault and the 50-metre and 145-metre walking events.
It also gives them a chance to break records in these events, which would otherwise never improve.
The day saw 11 club records improved and another 25 new club/all-comers (records set locally) records created.
The pole vaulters kicked off the day bright and early much to the delight of newcomer Connor Baker, whose 1.70 metres benchmark awarded him the 12-years boy’s record. Another first-timer Terri-Anne Knight set the 12-years girl’s height at 1.60 metres while Jade Scott had an all-time best clearing 1.80 metres in the 14-year girls and brother, Josh Scott, 1.90 metres in the 16-year boys.
James Stewart, 32, was disappointed at fouling out at 1.90 metres after clearing his final height of 1.80m by nearly one metre.
Michael Bracs, 8, led the charge for the juniors netting himself the 80-metre record in 14.40 seconds.
Creating new times were Zoe Duffell, 5, 200m, Aleigha Ferris, 5, in the 50m and 145m, as well as Macklin Kretschmann, 6, in the 50m, 145m and 200m sprints.
A few keen runners took to the track to contest the 3000m race and, after a gruelling 7.5 laps, Terri-Anne Knight put her name to another club record as did 15-year-old Dan Butler.
The 3000m is only offered to athletes 11 years and older, however the club made two exceptions this time as 10-year-olds Kadea O’Donnell and Molly Duffell used the race as a training run for their upcoming cross country championships.
The pair proved worthy of their representative duties posting times three minutes better than the current 11 years record – an ominous sign for the future.
The race walking section saw nine athletes line up at the 700-metre and 1500-metre start lines with four athletes emerging with new records – Patrick Baker in the 700 metres and Erin Faithful, Simona Reynolds, and Barbara Baker in the 1500-metre walks.
The hurdlers also had a chance to shine with Teaghan Goodger, 15, and Erin Faithful, 16, both showing good form on their way to breaking club records in their respective age groups.
Teaghan ran 38.50 seconds in the 200-metres hurdles while Erin notched 17.30 seconds in the 100-metres hurdles.
Mitchell Hujanen, 16, was given the chance to challenge for the open men’s hammer record.
Even though the men’s 7.26-kilogram hammer is thirty per cent heavier than Mitchell’s usual hammer, he still managed to hurl it out to 29.87 metres, adding 10 centimetres to the old record. The only other throwing record to fall on the day went to Erin Faithful in the 16 years women’s shot put.
Masters athlete Barbara Baker created one for the 80 metres and broke records in the 60 metres and 100 yards events.
James Stewart set a new time in the 30-34 years 80 metres and broke the existing time for the 1000 metres.
Club coaches David ‘Coach Awesome’ Scott and Ken ‘KenForcer’ Dickson had an epic battle in the 80 metres with Coach Awesome (10.4s) showing better staying power to finish just one tenth of a second ahead of his rival.
The athletics club will now break over the school holidays and resume club days on Saturday, July 18.