Riley (left) and Tristan (right) Friesen dawn their medals after setting personal bests at the CALTAF Classic track meet in Calgary last weekend. - SUBMITTED PHOTO
ktaniguchi@medicinehatnews.com@kellentaniguchi
The Medicine Hat Panthers Track and Field team was back at a track meet for the first time in over a year last weekend and two of its athletes took home medals in the men’s 16-17 category.
Grade 11 student at Hat High Tristan Friesen competed in javelin, shot put and discus – medaling in all three events and taking home gold in javelin with a personal best throw of 48.93 metres.
“I never threw that far in a meet or even practice and it was surreal,” said Friesen.
Friesen says it was nice to be at the CALTAF Classic track meet in Calgary because it was the first time in a long time that he’s been able to compete. Freisen’s brother, Riley, also participated in the event, winning bronze in shot put and discus, in which he set a personal best with a throw of 39.24 metres.
The brothers’ dad, Brent, is one of the seven throwing coaches for the Panthers’ track team and says he was proud of the results at the meet.
“Considering it’s the first time in two years, the javelin, Tristian was exceptional and except for shot put we all got personal bests and they all got personal bests in all the other events. That’s all you can hope for,” said Brent.
Brent says although COVID-19 halted track meets and even stopped Panthers practices at times, he still trained as much as possible with his sons. He said they would go to a field just the three of them to work on their throwing.
The boys are taking a couple of weeks off to finish tests at school, but then they’ll be back practicing their throws for the next CALTAF meet in Calgary, July 23-25. There were no fans at the meet last weekend, but with Alberta entering Stage 3 of its re-opening plan on Canada Day, Brent says it’ll be exciting to get back to as normal as soon as possible.
Tristan says it was nice to compete again, but if restrictions are lifted for the next track meet it would be a completely different experience.
“It would be exciting because one thing with the other meet is there weren’t many people there, it wasn’t as crowded as it usually was, it didn’t have the same energy but with no restrictions, it would look a lot more normal, a lot better,” said Tristan.
