UP, OVER AND AWAY
Savannah Sutherland of Borden, one of Canada’s top junior track athletes, practises at the Saskatoon Field House for this week’s Knights of Columbus Indoor Games.
She was 15 years old, volleyball game just finished, racing to the Saskatoon Field House as fast as she could.
Savannah Sutherland — a precociously talented runner out of tiny Borden — had a spot in last winter’s invitational 60-metre dash at the Knights of Columbus Indoor Games, against an international field of much older women.
But she also plays volleyball, and had that game, and that dash ...
“It was very stressful,” Sutherland, now 16, recalled with a grin. “I finished my game, rushed right over to the track and ran my race. I didn’t have much time to relax in between. The nerves were definitely going and the adrenalin was pumping, which actually might have helped my race a little bit.”
She placed fifth out of seven runners that night, trailing three Americans and a Nigerian — all of them at least 10 years older — and she’s primed for a repeat run this weekend.
“And there’s no volleyball this weekend,” says her coach, Lee Wolfater. “So she’s good.”
Sutherland is running the 50 and 60 m races this weekend, against a field that includes numerous NCAA and international standouts.
She dominates her piece of the Saskatchewan track scene, so this will be interesting.
Sutherland, who first attracted attention at age 12 while attending a legion track camp, has broken 25 provincial records (including a handful of relay marks) while winning 14 national medals over the past three years. Six of those medals are gold. She took a crack at the under-20 junior nationals in Montreal last year, a 15-year-old running against 19 year olds, and won silver in the 100 m hurdles and bronze in the 200.
“She’s got that fast twitch lots of athletes don’t have,” said Wolfater, who coaches her through the Saskatoon Track and Field Club. “She works hard, and she trains hard. She can push the limits more than anybody else I’ve seen, any high school athlete. When it starts to really hurt, she can power through it.
“There’s coaches,” he adds, “who say you get one every 20 years, or every 10 years. I haven’t been coaching that long; I’ve only coached for eight years. But I’ve been pretty lucky that I get to work with her.”
Wolfater first met Sutherland at that aforementioned camp when she was 12, fast legs breezing down the track.
“I know a lot of athletes in Saskatchewan, and she was beating all the fast girls who were two years older than her,” he recalls. “I went and talked to her. I said, ‘Hey, where are you from? Borden?’ I said, ‘Good job’ and ‘What’s your name?’ ”
She ended up making the provincial team as a 12-year-old. From there, Wolfater asked her and her parents if they wanted him to train her in Saskatoon, both to help with talent development and so she could get to know some of the other girls on the provincial scene.
It all came out of nowhere, Sutherland says.
“I had done school track in Borden. I liked running, but I didn’t know what I was doing. I learned how to use blocks at the camp, and I got my first pair of spikes. All of a sudden, it was ‘You’re on Team Saskatchewan!’ I was just thrown into it, without knowing what I was really doing.”
And that’s when it dawned on her: She could do something with this sport.
So there she was this past summer, at high school provincials, breaking two of Jenni Hucul’s long-standing Saskatchewan junior records (80 m hurdles, 200 m) and smashing a 400 m junior standard set 37 years prior by Gail Harris.
And here she is this winter, at the K of C Games, hoping it makes her better and faster as she works toward cracking the under-20 national team. That would — if she succeeds — land her a 100 m hurdles spot at the upcoming world athletics U20 championships in Kenya.
When she runs in this province, expectations are high. People stop what they’re doing just to watch her race. There’s a buzz.
It’s different at the K of C Games. Her goal here is to push herself, and to get a personal best.
“It doesn’t matter if I win,” Sutherland says. “There’s no stress on me to win those races, because I’m not expected to. I’ll just go out and do my best.”
Sutherland switched schools this past fall, going from Borden into Bishop Mahoney in Saskatoon. The decision was partly athletic, and partly academic — they have a health and sciences program that interested her. So every day, she makes that 40-minute commute from Borden to Saskatoon. It’s school, then track practice and volleyball, too, when that season is going.
Sutherland, who will also run senior and age-class events this weekend, is one of two local high school girls competing in the invitational portion. The other is 2019 Saskatchewan high school senior 100 m champion Paige Willems, also coached by Wolfater. Her 60 m time is the third best in the province, all ages, and she’s running the 50 this weekend.
It’s important, says meet director Dale Yellowlees, to give those fast-flying kids a chance to compete against international athletes when they’re deemed ready to do so.
They experience “the tensions, the pressures, the expectations, the intimidation of looking at all the stars around you,” he says, with an eye toward preparing them for big-ticket events in the future.
“The other side is we’d like to showcase her, and give people a chance to see her against good competition,” Yellowlees adds. “People get used to her beating all the local talent, and it’s nice to see her have a chance (at the K of C). If she finishes in the middle of the pack, that’s an achievement, and that gives people a chance to see the quality of her as an individual, and of our programs in general.”
Sutherland, whose favourite track event is the hurdles, says she loves the sport in part because there’s always something new to work on and improve. It’s a never-ending chase for perfection, and at 16, she knows a lot of work lies ahead.
“(Running at the K of C) is definitely nerve-racking, just because of the very high level of competition,” she says. “But it’s also exciting. I know I’ll be able to push myself against girls who are very fast and very good at what they do. And hopefully one day, I’ll be like them.”
The games commence with the elementary relays on Thursday, followed by the rest of the meet Friday and Saturday at the Field House. Sutherland’s 50 m preliminaries begin Friday at 5:15 p.m., with the final at 6:38 p.m. Her 60 m final is Saturday at 3:17 p.m.