For the second time in as many years, Kenny MacDonald is bringing a provincial track and field gold medal back to Hapnot.
The Grade 11 student took top spot in the outdoor pentathlon at the Manitoba High School Sports Association’s (MHSAA) track and field provincials in Brandon, picking up the school’s lone top spot and podium finish. Last year, MacDonald took the gold in the boys’ junior varsity high jump and finished with a silver in the boys’ junior varsity outdoor pentathlon.
Moving up to the varsity ranks this year, MacDonald would take part again in both events, only this time against older competition. In the pentathlon, athletes take part in five events - a 100-metre races, an 800-metre race and long jump, high jump and shotput competitions. Results from event to event are determined by a points system - better performances mean more points, with the highest point-getter after the five events being crowned as winner.
The event started with the 100-metre race. MacDonald finished second of eight participants in his heat, putting together a 12.65 in the race and finishing eighth overall. MacDonald earned 529 points.
That would lead into the 800-metre race, where MacDonald finished eighth again, coming across the line in 2:22.13 and picking up 580 points.
MacDonald’s bread and butter in the pentathlon is in the two jumping events and in those, he feasted, finishing in a tie for fourth in the long jump and picking up 455 points. After an 11th-place, 522-point finish in the shotput, the final event would be the high jump - MacDonald’s best event.
In that, MacDonald took on all comers and won with a 1.82 metre leap, nine full centimetres higher than the next best competitor. That gave him a whopping 644 points, enough to get out into the lead and win gold.
MacDonald picked up 2,730 points in total, ahead of silver medallist Carter Broughton from Stonewall Collegiate’s 2,650 points and bronze medallist from Morris School Logan Mazinke’s 2,614.
On top of his golden showing, MacDonald made the finals in the senior varsity boys’ high jump, finishing sixth with a jump of 1.75 metres. MacDonald’s golden jump from the pentathlon competition would have earned him a silver medal in the high jump by itself, but the attempts do not carry over between events.
One other Hapnot athlete finished in the top 10 in the final of their event - junior varsity athlete Cassidy Alexander qualified for the finals in the girls’ one-kilogram discus, where she finished ninth with a toss of 21.52 metres. Mila Playford finished 13th in the junior varsity girls’ 1,500-metre race, while Piper Sapergia-Green finished 14th in the girls’ senior varsity 3,000-metre race and 18th in the 1,500-metre race. Hapnot’s junior varsity girls’ distance medley team cracked the top 15 in their event, coming in 15th out of 32 competitors.
