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Three Pen Track athletes off to B.C. Summer Games

It’s been an anxious week of waiting but at last three 14-year-old Peninsula Track Club athletes have had the news they were hoping for

By Danny Daniels/Contributor

It’s been an anxious week of waiting but at last three 14-year-old Peninsula Track Club athletes have had the news they were hoping for.

They have secured “wild card” spots on the Zone 6 Team heading for the B.C. Summer games in Nanaimo.

Ben Sammons will be competing on the gruelling Pentathlon event, while Finn Battersby will have his work cut out in the 1500m Steeplechase. In the shorter 100m Hurdles race, Brennan Hopkins will have to contest the heats run-off in order to make his desired finals race.

Still not sure of a place on the team, but named to take over should substitutes be required, are Anna-Maria Hilton and Cameron Whalley.

While Club athletes continue preparation for the upcoming B.C. Junior Development, Youth and Masters Championships, Jacqueline Gaby, last year’s High School Race Walk Champion, took on the challenge of hosting the “Panther Mile”, a fund-raising effort to aid in the eventual replacement of the running track at Parkland School.

Assisted by several classmates and older members of Pen Track acting as Race Marshals, the event began in front of the school, following an out-and-back course to and over the main road to the ferry terminal.

An encouraging response saw a fleet of competitors, including one on crutches, turning out for what might become an annual end-of-year event for Parkland School.