PHOTO COURTESY WILLIS KOLODY
Keegan Kolody of Medicine Hat stands atop the podium after winning gold in the 800m at the Canadian track and field championships in Ottawa from July 30 to Aug. 3.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Medicine Hat’s Keegan Kolody has found his new specialty race, one he’s captured national gold in.
The 21-year-old track athlete captured a gold medal in the 800m Para ambulatory race at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Ottawa on Aug. 2. Kolody, losing his right shoe at the start of the race, ran to a time of two minutes and 23.5 seconds, taking the national gold just three weeks after he started training for the 800m race.
“It was pretty awesome to watch,” his father Willis said. “He trains really hard and it’s a nice payoff.”
Kolody has been running since he was young, racing for the Dr. Roy Wilson Learning Centre, Medicine Hat High, the Medicine Hat Panthers Track and Field Club and Medicine Hat College as an open runner. He has been admitted to Medicine Hat College and will begin running for the Rattlers starting this fall.
For Kolody, who falls on the autism spectrum, running has always been something he’s enjoyed and is an opportunity of him to show his competitive ability his father says.
“If you say to him, go run half a marathon, go run a marathon, he just doesn’t complain, he just goes and runs until he crosses the finish line and then he just moves on,” Kolody said.
“He’s competitive and he likes to win, he likes to compete against able-bodied people at the Rattlers runs where he finished top three with all of the able-bodied runners in the 5K, and that’s not even his specialty run.”
One of Kolody’s specialty runs is the 400m, which he also raced in at nationals, finishing fourth across the line but coming in last due to the RAZA system utilized by the Para Olympics. The system is set up to even the playing field between athletes with differing levels of disability. Kolody, in the T20 class, had to make up seven seconds off the start to finish in first, doing so even after losing a shoe.
Going into nationals, Kolody had the 400m and the 1,500m as his specialties before he was put into the 800m three and a half weeks before the championships. Kolody’s first place finish in the 800m fell a few seconds below the qualifier for the World Championships, giving him something to work towards qualifying for next year.
Willis says the success wouldn’t have been possible without the support group around Keegan, from his Panthers coaches Leo and Mashere Gayle, to the Medicine Hat Tigers whom he works with as a locker room assistant.
Next up for Kolody will be running for the Rattlers cross-country team before shifting inside for the winter months with both MHC and the Panthers. He’ll run inside at the Leisure Centre as well to train before returning to running outside in April, getting back to the outside track and working his way to provincials and hopefully back to nationals, looking to shave off those seconds to make it to Worlds.
From there, the Paralympics has long been the goal and one that is getting closer for Kolody and his new race. While in Ottawa, Kolody’s golden race was before Canadian Olympic medalist Marco Arp raced to a gold himself. They shared the same podium at different times in Ottawa and with both shoes laced up and a few seconds shaved off, could see the same result at an Olympics and Paralympics in the future.
“He shared the podium as the superstars that you see on TV that Keegan is hoping one day, that’s his ultimate goal,” Willis said. “Get to the World Championships first and then eventually get to the Paralympics, that’s the ultimate goal.”
