SUBMITTED PHOTO Zaynna Willoughby poses with her bronze medal at the Butterdome at the University of Alberta.
Medicine Hat athletes twice needed photo-finishes to confirm their spots on the podium at the Alberta Indoor Track and Field Championships in Edmonton this past weekend.
Both Zaynna Willoughby and Renae Ryan edged other athletes at the line, with Willoughby’s going down to to the smallest margin possible – one thousandth of a second.
In the under-16 girls 60 metre hurdles, the Medicine Hat Panthers club member ducked her head at the line which was enough to beat Edmonton’s Kayla Malle by 0.001 seconds. They both clocked a time of 9.98 seconds, but Willoughby got the bronze.
She also took 16th in the 60 metre sprint (8.59 seconds) and 14th in the 300 with a personal best 46.15-second run.
“Zaynna has set goals and we can’t wait to see her smash them,” wrote Panthers manager Michelle Campbell in an email to the News.
Ryan, racing in senior women’s 60 metre sprint under the Bulldogs club banner, edged Edmonton’s Jasmine Hill-Durand by three thousandths of a second, both in 8.30 seconds.
She also combined with teammates Kiana Farrell, Lukas Herter and Orin May for a win in the 4×200 mixed relay, their time of 1:42.50 holding up when the other team, from Edmonton, was disqualified for a lane violation.
In all, the Bulldogs tallied a dozen medals, led by a haul of three by each of May and Laine Gauthier.
May was also third in both the 60 metre (7.21 seconds) and 60 metre hurdles (9.11 seconds) for under-20 men. Gauthier only competed one day in under-14 boys due to injury but oh, what a day it was. He was second in the 800 metre run (2:31.32, six hundredths away from first), then placed third in the high jump (1.25 metres), shot put (7.52 metres) and 60 metre (8.39 seconds). He was also fifth in long jump.
Bulldogs coach Sean Freeman won in masters men’s shot put, throwing 7.79 metres. Dustin Morris won silver in the under-18 boys’ triple jump (12.00 metres), while also setting personal bests in the 60 and 300 metre sprints.
Madison Kane-Rissling set a personal best in high jump of 1.55 metres which won her senior division, and added an uncontested win in pentathlon to put her in the top 20 in Canada according to Freeman.
