Harvard bound local runner still in chase for OFSAA gold
Despite crash, gets to continue in 1,500 metres
BELLEVILLE — He crashed, he finished the race and then he waited.
Sir John A. Macdonald student John Fish, who will continue his academic and athletic careers at prestigious Harvard University later this year, is still in the hunt for a pair of medals at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations track and field championship after an unfortunate collision Thursday in a senior boys’ 1,500-metre preliminary race at Bruce Faulds Track.
Fish, who tumbled over Jordan MacIntosh of Thunder Bay, picked himself up and finished sixth in the qualifying race, which wasn’t good enough to progress. SJAM officials made an appeal on his behalf and meet officials decided to allow Fish and MacIntosh to compete in Friday’s expanded-field final.
“I kind of came to terms with it either way. Worst-case scenario I rest (Friday) and crush the 800 on Saturday, best-case scenario I’m ready to go … and that’s where I am now,” said Fish, who wasn’t injured but did destroy his new spikes in the collision.
“It’s tough to stop and start like that … so I’m proud of myself for finishing and staying strong mentally,” he added.
With this incident behind him, Fish can still achieve his premeet goals of winning both the 800metre and 1,500-metre races.
The Laurel Creek Track and Field Club member also wants to achieve the Athletics Canada 800-metre qualifying standard of 1:52 he needs to be considered for July’s Junior Pan American/ NACAC U20 games in Trujillo, Peru.
He has already achieved the 3:58 standard needed to participate in the 1,500-metre race.
Athletics Canada is making its team selection June 26.
Fish is participating in just his second OFSAA championship and first since 2014, when he won bronze in the midget boys’ 400metre race.
He turned his focus to science competitions the past two track seasons and won a silver medal at last year’s Canada Wide Science Fair in Montreal, for a project that looked at measuring the biomass of trees using computer vision.
His success at the science fair sparked another idea.
Fish figured, if he could put together a string of solid results on the track, he might be able to attract the interest of American schools.
He wanted to compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 level and he wanted to attend an institution with lofty academic standards.
Harvard fit the bill on both counts.
His breakthrough came when he posted a strong time last summer in an 800-metre race that led to conversations between Fish and several Ivy League coaches. He also paid visits to Princeton, Cornell and Yale before telling Harvard head coach Patrick Wales-Dinan that he wanted in.
“The Ivy League really appealed to me because being a professional runner might not be what I want to do with my life and I felt like if I went to a school that didn’t give me a great education, I might regret that later,” he said.
“There was an immediate fit with the people on the team and the atmosphere at the school. I felt like Harvard was the right place to be.”
The yearly “all-in” cost of a Harvard education, said Fish, is about $73,000 US. A financial aid scholarship will reduce his annual net cost to less than what it would have been to stay in Canada.
He will study computer science and is considering a minor or double major in economics.
In other opening day action, a trio of local girls finished just off the podium in the hotly contested midget long jump. Nicole Paine of Galt was fourth with a 5.11-metre effort, the same as fifth-place finisher Milenne Habash of Père René de Galinée. Grand River’s Maia Rodrigue was sixth with a 5.08-metre jump. Olivia Freer of North Lambton edged Mahalia Mitchell of Brampton’s St. Marguerite d’Youville for gold. Both turned in 5.16-metre jumps.
Anna Bout of St. John’s-Kilmarnock qualified for the final of the open girls 1,500-metre steeplechase and the St. David’s team of Mackenzie Denomme, Mikayla Schnarr, Hannah Blair and Jordyn Waters qualified second in the senior girls’ 4x100-metre relay.
Sevanne Ghazarian of St. Benedict and Christine Laurie of KCI qualified for the senior girls’ 1,500metre final.
Joshua Jackson of St. Mary’s, the top-ranked runner in the junior boys’ 400-metre dash, was a scratch for his preliminary heat.