LDSS runner makes mark during rookie track season

Junior Sydney Brooks racks up awards at regional, provincial levels

DAN MCNEE dmcnee@midwesternnewspapers.com

GOWANSTOWN – It’s almost hard to believe that Sydney Brooks only began running competitively this year. And if her success during the 2022 spring track season is any indication, she will be bringing home a lot more hardware for Listowel District Secondary School (LDSS) before her high school career is through.

Brooks, a Grade 10 student competing in the junior division and her first full track season since the pandemic all but ground high school athletics to a halt the previous two years, is also extremely modest of her accomplishments despite all that she has achieved in a relatively short period of time. It’s evident that she’d rather not have the spotlight on her at all.

That said, it’s impossible to ignore LDSS’s top track athlete this season. Brooks, 15, racked up seven individual medals across the Huron-Perth, WOSSAA and OFSAA West Regionals throughout the spring: She won first in the 1500m (beating the second-place finisher by 17 seconds) and second in the 400m at Huron-Perth in Clinton; she won second in the 800m and earned a pair of thirds in the 400m and 1500m at WOSSAA in London; and won another pair of thirds in the

400m and 800m at the OFSAA West Regionals in LaSalle. She also helped the LDSS junior girls’ team to a third-place overall finish at WOSSAA.

“It definitely made it easier, being with friends,” said Brooks recently at her Gowanstown home, referring to competing and travelling with a contingent of fellow LDSS track athletes.

“It made it easier being around a team, rather than just being in your own head all the time. It was a family.”

After taking an interest in distance running in elementary school through cross-country, Brooks began training at Sundown Athletics Club in Clinton this year a couple times a week with coach Baird Robinson. Coupled with the guidance and expertise of LDSS track and field coach Jennifer Shields, Brooks began to see her times improve ahead of the high school competition season.

Brooks would finish 11th in qualifying heats in the 800m at the OFSAA provincial finals in Toronto on June 2-4, and over the course of one month of competition had shaved six seconds off her time in that event, running a personal best of 2:22.95 at the Track and Field Centre at York University. She also put up a 1:01.31 in the 400m qualifiers, good for ninth in the province for a high school junior.

Brooks admits that she has had a tough time adjusting to a solo sport opposed to a team atmosphere like in hockey, which she avidly plays during the winter months. When asked if she gets nervous before a race, Brooks laughed.

“That’s funny. Yeah, it’s bad,” she said. “Track’s hard because you’re alone. It’s just you. Which I think makes it worse.

I’m bad when I’m waiting, but once I get into warmup, I can’t really be nervous anymore. I calm down and then I’m in a different zone.

“I always like when it’s done. It is fun even though it sucks. A 60-second race should not induce five hours of anxiety, but it seems to.”

“I’m proud of what she’s accomplished. It’s fun to watch,” added Sydney’s father, Jason Brooks. “The competing and racing is great, but just the fact that she’s able to do something like running that she can enjoy and help her in so many areas. We’re definitely thankful for the coaching that she’s received – from her club coach in Baird Robinson to her high school coach, Ms. Shields – both of them have been great.

“Getting ninth in the province and 11th in the province is pretty remarkable in my book. I’m very proud of her and I know she’s worked really hard. Whatever she gets she earns. I think as a father that’s what makes me the most proud.”

The good news for LDSS is that Brooks has at least two years of high school left, and how far her running will take her into local track lore with her first year as a senior on deck is yet to be determined. In any case she’s off to a flying start.

“I want to get my times down,” said Sydney of looking ahead to next season. “I have goals for this summer that I want to hit. There will always be goals.”