The group of 30 athletes ranging in age from four years right through to fifty something recently participated in the Mount Isa athletics Club’s Retro Day, an event which was designed to give athletes a chance to partake in a range of events that are either, no longer conducted, not done on club days, held at other venues or have had weight changes over the years.

It is also an opportunity to challenge those dormant records that may be sitting on the books.

And challenge those records they did.

In all 17 records were broken with 12 different athletes sharing in the haul.

Five-year-old bullet, Rylie Hanson proved she had heart and determination taking out the 5yrs 145m and 200m records in 32.24s and 47.53s consecutively.

Her 200m record was arguably the best of the records broken on the day as it was previously held by Tegan Kum Sing and was set 21 years ago in 1997.

Just to prove he was no slouch, Rylie’s brother Cooper also took out the 7yrs 145m record in a time of 27.49s.

Master Kylie Hahipene is set to clean sweep the women’s 35-39yr records now adding the 60m – 8.97s, 80m – 12.38s and 100m hurdles – 20.71s to her ever growing list.

Kylie also took out the open women’s 100 yard event running 13.91s. Susan ‘Sparkles’ Cernoia-Scott was hot on Kylie’s heals bettering the 40-44ys 60m time to 9.24s.

Open athlete Luke Evans muscled his way through the open men’s 110m hurdles.

His time of 21.11s even more impressive considering only three of the ten hurdles were left standing at the completion of the race. To add to his woes the club photographer was still standing between the lanes at the finish line which took some quick thinking to avoid.

The clubs middle distance runners also had their time in the sun. Pratik Seegoolam’s 12m 45.09s took more than two minutes off the 11yr boys 3000m time. His run was very consistent with his lap times varying very little in his seven and a half laps.

Jayden Boshoff had a solid run in the 15yrs 1000m dropping that time by 43 seconds to 3m 13.62s and Sienna TeWani took nearly a minute off the 13yr girls 700m walk time.

The club pole vaulters also had one of their rare opportunities to get some recorded heights which paid dividends for 13yr old Rico Waerea who cleared 2.06m a record and personal best of 16 cm.

Lachy McCoy also improved the U/20 men’s pole vault height to 2.45m.

Throws powerhouse Breanna Waerea put a massive increase on the 16yr women’s 4kg hammer record (normal weight is 3kg) increasing the distance from 26.71m to a whopping 40.43m. Another opportunity given to athletes at Retro Day is for capable under age athletes to challenge records from the open age group which is what U/20 athlete Mitch Hujanen did.

In what turned out to be a great mini battle between him and Breanna, Mitch was lifted to an impressive 40.95m with the 7.26kg open weight hammer. Breanna was also successful with the 4kg Shot Put for her age group finally pushing that mark over ten metres to 10.08m.

The next retro day has been planned for the first weekend of the September school holidays one week before the hugely popular North Queensland Athletics Championships in Townsville.