Track getting upgrades
Soccer, track facilities all part of $636,000 budget at Rotary Track this summer
On the same day Sage Watson finished third in the 400 metre hurdles at her firstever Diamond League event in Shanghai, Ken Sauer gushed about the local star at a press conference announcing almost two-thirds of a million dollars in renovations to the Rotary Track she used to race on.
Sauer, other dignitaries and representatives were on hand Saturday as the provincial government pledged $150,000 of the roughly $636,000 project, which will break ground in July and should be finished by the end of October.
“The whole thing is just great,” Sauer said Monday. “What we’ve done is produced... a Sage Watson, she comes back and helps the kids when she’s in town, two others have had four-year scholarships...
“Ever since we built that track, it’s become a premier track in Alberta and I don’t mind bragging about it.”
Opened in 2007 ahead of the 2008 Alberta Summer Games in Medicine Hat, Rotary Track has hosted everything from elementary school meets to high school provincials and of course, the Games themselves. Thousands of athletes use it every year, and that’s before you include the use at two soccer pitches that are part of the facility.
Aside from improved photo-finish timing, a new administration and storage area and extra paving to allow more bleachers at the track, soccer is getting team change rooms and an improved washroom and change room for officials on site. Those soccer improvements are half the budget and will apparently allow for the local association to host bigger and better events.
Medicine Hat Soccer Association president Jeff Vangen didn’t respond to phone calls from the News requesting comment by press time, but Marg Derbyshire — whose work with the track society and the South Zone school sports organization goes back decades — said everyone’s excited about the additions.
“For (soccer) it’s a matter of having the required changing rooms for provincial meets and things, they weren’t allowed to have the meet because they didn’t have enough change rooms,” said Derbyshire.
“We’ll be able to run multischool track meets in a much more organized fashion, not have equipment coming in when we’re trying to do results, a sign from the race falling on top of your head.”
Indeed, anybody at the high school city meet today will see Derbyshire and her compatriots working computers and handing out ribbons while equipment is constantly being taken out and stowed back beside them. The original facility space is akin to a big garage, which was fine when the $1.3 million track opened, but it’ll be nice to upgrade for everyone’s sake.
“It’s growing and growing and growing,” said Sauer, noting talks about the renovation project began a few years ago. “It’s a foundation sport. It’s good for cross country, basketball, soccer, hockey, because you get out and you condition.”
The City of Medicine Hat will fund $325,000, the soccer association $15,000, the track society $25,000, school district 76 $18,000 and the local Catholic board $7,000. Sauer had hoped for a provincial grant of $268,262 but will now get to work figuring out the remaining $100,000-plus shortfall.
“You try to be as persuasive as you can with various organizations in town that may be able to help,” he said.
As for Watson, her time of 55.23 seconds was a personal season best. The professional athlete was 1.45 seconds behind Jamaica’s Janieve Russell, who was edged by one hundredth of a second by American Dalilah Muhammad (53.77).