The end of the school year track and field events for students at Aurora Middle School took on a localized style this year, thanks to all students competing with a pandemic rather than other schools.
Aurora students took part in outdoor and indoor events over the last week, with teachers keeping scores, times, heights and distances in each category. Because of COVID-19 measures, the school's top athletes won't be competing in district, regional or provincial events.
Aurora phys. ed teacher Wayne Mah said the students have enjoyed the localized competition, challenging their classmates and other classes in their grades.
"We've had one boy in Grade 7 run the 200 metres in 27 seconds," Mah told a group of Grade 8 boys the day after the impressive run from the student one grade below.
While the Grade 8s couldn't best that score, one student high-jumper from Grade 8, Corbin Rolph, did set the school-best jump at 1.32 metres. Rolph's front-facing roll over the high bar would have earned him a spot at districts, said Mah. Another Grade 8 student leaped 3.7 metres in the long jump to set this year's school record.
Starting with the Grade 4 classes on Monday and working through to the 8s on Friday, Mah and a crew of Aurora staff will keep the results to compare to next year's track and field days.
While the Alberta Schools Athletics Association is using a virtual application to record track and field results for students in Grades 7-9 this year, the Lakeland Schools Athletic Association has suspended all of its events for the 2020-2021 school year. Athletics at Aurora fall under the LSAA governance. According to the ASAA website from results of virtual track and field events across the province, the furthest distance in long jump was 4.2 metres by a Grade 9 Calgary school student. The same student recorded the fastest 100 metre sprint time with 10.2 seconds.