Canada’s young team snatched an exciting Bronze medal in a closely fought International event today at York University. Canada’s young team of 10 & 11 year olds finished 3rd a bare 4.5 seconds ahead of Manchester, England! Competing against the clock in four different countries the teams were kept informed of their progress via internet and telephone links, their sights firmly set on being first to finish. The children were also attempting to break the world marathon records set by Paula Radcliffe and Haile Gebrselassie.
London opened up an early lead and held it all the way to a first place finish which may not be too surprising as they had an 11 year old run a 27 second 200 metres! Here in Toronto the fastest lap (by a boy) was 31.87 but we maintained a close fight with Madrid and Manchester for most of the race, however, in the end Madrid proved stronger and opened up a comfortable gap to secure 2nd place. Canada fought gallantly to hold off a late charge from Manchester in an exciting final few laps. The deafening cheers of support helped the Canadians clinch 3rd place by the slimmest of margins, 4.5 seconds! Valencia finished 5th just over a minute behind Manchester and West Virginia, USA finished in 6th position.
The team of 30 young athletes was drawn from 3 Ontario Schools, Lawfield Elementary School from Hamilton, Mary Shadd Public School and Fleming Public School both from Scarborough.
In this exciting and historic event the object was for the children to run six or seven times over a 200m stretch in a continuous relay, to not only race against the other teams but to attempt to break the world marathon records of Paula Radcliffe, 2 hours 15:25 and Haile Gebrselassie, 2 hours 3:59.
The strong London team finished only 12 seconds behind the men’s world record time and the first 5 teams broke the world record set by Paula Radcliffe. From a Canadian view point only the London team broke the long standing Canadian record time of Jerome Drayton, 2 hours 10:09 set in 1969.
The full results were as follows:
1. London, U.K. 2.04.11.3
2. Madrid, Spain 2.10.52.0
3. Toronto, Canada 2. 12.17.8
4. Manchester, U.K. 2.12.22.3
5. Valencia, Spain 2.13.28.0
6. West Virginia, U.S.A. 2.17.09.0
Lawfield School also sent several students to cover this exciting event from an educational and technological viewpoint ~ their students will make a “mini” version of the media covering this event. The information obtained will be used in the classroom in a variety of curriculum-based activities.
A Spanish television program will be filmed with connections from the different venues. The broadcasting will mark the beginning of the 2008-2009 Deporte Divertido season.
DEPORTE DIVERTIDO is a Spanish educational program for children designed by experts in sport and education. It is based upon a British event – “Fun In Athletics” – a program IFTA & OFTA have been running successfully in Ontario for over four years “Deporte Divertido is competition, team play, personal achievement and, above all, education.”
The organizers of this exciting event, International Fun and Team Athletics (IFTA) and Ontario Track and Field Association (OTFA) are hoping that this concept will expand right across North America to link up children in a fun, sporting environment with cities from all over the world.
If you have further questions, please contact:
Milt Ottey:
Tel: 416 426 7151
mail@teamathletics.ca