City considers options for new outdoor track facility
The City of Saskatoon will help find a solution to the looming loss of the city’s only outdoor track facility, but Mayor Don Atchison wants consensus on a new location.
Dennis Beerling, a longtime fixture on the Saskatoon sporting scene, appeared at Monday’s planning, development and community services committee meeting to explain the situation.
Beerling told the committee the track and field community expects to lose the 10-year-old track at University of Saskatchewan’s Griffiths Stadium on June 30, 2017. The track is expected to be removed as part of upgrades to install a new artificial turf at the football stadium.
Some possible new locations include a renovated high school facility, a spot on the U of S campus and inside the Clarence Downey Speed Skating Oval.
“Is it possible for all the clubs to come together and agree on a location?” Atchison asked. “I think that’s really important that they come as one voice.”
Beerling said he does not care where a new facility is located. He pointed out many communities in Saskatchewan smaller than Saskatoon have outdoor track facilities.
“Saskatoon is the hub of track and field in this province,” Beerling said. “The track community cannot wait 10 years for a new facility to get built.”
The city’s plans include a new athletics facility some time in the next 10 years, Beerling said.
“We need a plan,” he added. “We need an allocation and we need it now.”
The committee unanimously supported referring the request for help to city hall administration to explore options. The cost of replacing the track alone is estimated to be about $1.5 million, which does not include any associated structures like dressing rooms.
Beerling said it’s too expensive to try to accommodate all of the city’s track events at the indoor track at the Saskatoon Field House. He also pointed out field competitors cannot throw the discus or javelin at the facility.
Former Saskatoon Olympian Margaret Tosh was among 20 supporters of a new track facility who demonstrated with placards outside city hall during Monday morning’s committee meeting.
“Griffiths is really important to us,” Tosh, 79, said Monday. “We just have to find somewhere else and find some money.”
Tosh, who still competes in the masters category, said the facility is used continually all summer long, by athletes ranging in age from preschool to the master athletes she coaches — some in their 80s.
She questioned the focus by the U of S on building a new hockey facility and renovating Griffiths to better accommodate football. She pointed out that concerns about concussions in both hockey and football have many parents steering their children clear of those sports.
“We’ve got two athletes on the (2016) Olympic team that both trained at Griffiths,” said Tosh, citing heptathlete Brianne Theisen Eaton and shot putter Taryn Suttie.
Tosh, who competed in the javelin at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, admitted she has a sentimental attachment to Griffiths Stadium. “I’m the last athlete Joe Griffths ever coached,” Tosh said of the stadium’s namesake. “There’s quite a bit of sentimentality there for me. To not have a track seems to me to be ludicrous.”