There were some high-flying skills on display at Calgary’s Olympic Plaza on Saturday as members of Canada’s track team along with some strong Alberta up-and-comers gathered for a special pop-up track event.
The Calgary Track Takeover was hosted by Athletics Alberta and organizers say that while the weather didn’t fully cooperate, there was still a lot of fun to be had.
“We wanted to find an unique way to promote our sport. They ran an event in Nathan Phillips Square on June 12 and so this is the second event of its kind in Canada, first in western Canada,” said James Rosnau, executive director of Athletics Alberta.
Rosnau said that the event also helped promote younger athletes competing in the sport.
“Just a great event to showcase the sport in a different light and actually bring our younger athletes into the mix as well. We have some of our top Albertan athletes competing against these Olympians.”
Damian Warner, Canada’s most decorated decathlete, says that it’s a great idea to bring everything that makes track and field great right out into the public eye.
“This is a really cool event. It’s unlike most track and field events. Most of them you have to go to a track at the university but this one brought it right downtown. It has music, it brought all these people out here, and it’s a really cool environment.”
The event included the pole vault and high jump, but the rainy weather ended up cancelling the sprints.
