Oak Bay’s Dozzi eyes record run
Top-notch field for 3,000-metre race threatens to topple 42-year-old provincial mark
Tyler Dozzi’s specialties are the 1,500 metres, 3,000 metres and 1,446 kilometres. The first two are races that Dozzi, one of the stars of the Oak Bay team from Victoria, is slated to compete in when the B.C. high school track and field provincials run Thursday through Saturday at Langley’s McLeod Athletic Park.
The third is the driving distance the 18-year-old Dozzi travelled, according to Google maps, when he left his family in Terrace to billet with a Victoria-area family and start training under two-time Olympian Bruce Deacon before entering Grade 11 last season.
It couldn’t have been easy leaving dad Paul, mom Susan and brother Reece, 22. Tyler has recorded several noteworthy efforts athletically, though.
Dozzi, who recently committed to the UBC Thunderbirds for next fall, shattered the Vancouver Island championship record in the 3,000 metres two weeks ago. His 8:28.00 effort crushed the former mark of 8:34.78, set last year by Brendan Hoff of Reynolds.
He believes the provincials’ meet record of 8:21.27, set in 1975 by John Martens of Burnaby South, could be fall. It will be no simple task, especially when you consider that no Canadian of any age has run that fast this season (an 8:22.59 from University of Guelph product Christopher Dulhanty was posted earlier this month), but Dozzi says a top-notch field for the race in Langley could help in that regard.
The event is expected to include Charlie Dannatt, a UBC-bound runner from North Vancouver’s Handsworth who ran an 8:31.28 to beat Dozzi by three seconds at a race in Oregon in April, and Point Grey’s Thomas Nobbs, who committed to the University of Washington for 2017-18 in December and won the 3,000 metres at the Canadian Legion championship in Blainville, Que., last August in a time of 8:30.83.
The 3,000 metres finals are slated to begin Saturday at 2:50 p.m., starting with the junior girls event.
“Is 8:21 possible? Yeah, I think it is, and especially if I have other guys trying to do the same thing,” Dozzi said of Martens’ mark, which is tied for the longest-standing male meet record, with the shot put mark set by New Westminster’s Scott Neilson in 1975 event.
“I want to talk to guys like Charlie and Tom. We all go for it, and we see who ends up running the best.”
Dozzi obviously still speaks highly of Terrace. It’s a small track and field community, and he was regularly making the 400-kilometre round-trip journey to Smithers on Sundays with either Paul or Susan to train with coach Neil Currie.
Dozzi met Deacon, who represented Canada in the marathon in the Atlanta 1996 Olympics and the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Now 50, Deacon is coaching the Prairie Inn Harriers team. Deacon suggested coming to Victoria, and helped set him up with his billets, Kevin and Connie Neufeld.
Dozzi credits the Neufelds and their sons Matt, 21, and twins Kai and Travis, 19, with making the adjustment as easy as possible.
They’re a family that understands athletics, considering Matt is a 6-foot-11 former hoops star at Lambrick Park who announced last week that he’s transferring to the University of California Davis from Saint Louis University, and Kevin was a member of the Canadian rowing eights that won gold at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics.
And Dozzi has had things in sports to overcome during his time in Victoria. He wasn’t eligible to compete in last year’s B.C. high school championships due to his transfer.
“I’m so excited about the provincials. When I was in Terrace, I didn’t really have anyone else on my team, so I didn’t have any obligations and I would go around and cheer on all sorts of people,” said Dozzi, who also won the 1,500 at the Vancouver Island championships.
“I have a lot of good friends on a lot of different teams, including people that I go head to head with.
“Now, I’m excited to be a teammate, too. We have a chance to win it all. We have a very good team.”
As for what he’s learned from Deacon, Dozzi says that he’s “significantly better.”
“It’s all aspects,” he said. “It’s getting ready for a race, it’s the proper recovery from a race. Those are all things that have come mostly from training with Bruce.”
Deacon lauds Dozzi’s athletic ability, but also talks up his hunger, explaining: “He brings his ‘A’ game when he races and he’s able to race above his training.”
Dozzi is a sharp cookie. He plans on studying engineering at UBC and admits that part of the reason he opted to go there is that the school is “very renowned” for that program. He had other options. He visited Guelph as well as NCAA schools Iona, Washington State, Oklahoma State and Syracuse.
Syracuse features middle distance runner Justyn Knight, a junior from Vaughan, Ont., who is the Canadian under-20 record holder in the 5,000 metres. Dozzi admitted to being excited to meet Knight, adding “it’s always great to see a Canadian doing well and continuing to improve.”
It wasn’t enough to entice him away from UBC. Besides the academics, he’s also keen on working with head coach Laurier Primeau, who Dozzi says “is the type of person who I think could coach someone to greatness.”