Elementary schools from across the South Cariboo converged on 100 Mile House for the South Cariboo Interschool Track Meet.
Hosted at 100 Mile Elementary School on Thursday, June 13 the meet featured the top 100 from 100 Mile, Forest Grove Elementary School, Eliza Archie Memorial School, Horse Lake Elementary School, GROW Online Learning and Mile 108 Elementary School. They competed in a variety of sports including the long jump, high jump, 100-meter dash and a relay race.
Crystal Dawn-Langton, principal of 100 Mile Elementary, said she was happy to host the various schools in the spirit of friendly competition.
"It had been as good as we could want it to be. The kids have been incredible sportsmen with one another, they're encouraging each other in between schools and they're making connections in between schools, which is the most important part," Dawn-Langton said. "The weather was good, they had fun and everyone was smiling."
One of the students enjoying himself was Grade 4 student Kurt Lundsbye from 100 Mile Elementary. This year marked Kurt's first competition and he said it was really fun because he was "winning a lot and losing a lot."
"We've been all working hard out there and we've been doing really great," Kurt said. "I competed in the long jump, 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash and the relay. Long jump I got first in with a 3.18-meter jump and I won the 200-meter dash in 38.81 seconds."
Kurt remarked the event was a great time and competing in front of all the other students was a "magical" feeling. He's looking forward to competing again next year.
Horse Lake Elementary's Neveah Ratcliff, Grade 7, meanwhile held a similar sentiment to Kurt. She remarked she was really tired after competing in all her events including the girl's relay, the mixed relay, the 100-meter dash and the high jump, to name a few. Ratcliff took home first in both the relay races, first place in the 100-meter dash, first place in the 200-meter dash, second in the 800-meter dash and second in high jump.
"I was pretty excited since it's my last year (in elementary). It's a good end," Ratcliff remarked. "(This event) builds a better bond for when we all go into high school together. We'll know each other better from all the events."
At the end of the day, Dawn-Langton announced the top athletes in each age category. They included Jacob Sarchet for the 10-year-old boys, Lexi Cross and Brooklyn Stack for the 10-year-old girls, Robert Maller for the 11-year-old boys, Kylee Archive for the 11 year-old-girls, Ronan Gill for the 12 year-old-boys, Shia Briggs for the 12-year-old-girls, Ashton Martell for the 13 year-old-boys and Olivia Gunther and Nevaeh Ratcliff for the 13-year-old-girls.
Finally, the wins for each school were tallied up. When all was said and done Horse Lake Elementary took first place this year with a score of 187 points, followed by Mile 108 with 134 points and 100 Mile Elementary with 129 points.
