Marcus Renford (above, right) earns a gold medal crossing the finish line in the under-16 100-metre race. [Stephen J. Thorne]

It is an event Flying Angels Academy just can’t miss. For almost a decade—since the Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships opened competition to non-Legion athletes—the Toronto club has made the trip, wherever that might take them.

This year, it took them on a 26-hour marathon to Brandon, Man. Ten teenage athletes and four coaches piled into two vehicles, cranked up the music and hit the road to join 637 other athletes 17 years old and under for three days of competition.

Food, gas and bathroom breaks were the only stops, with some of the coaches’ old-school gospel and Motown music offering occasional respite from the relentless hip-hop beats. By the time they left the Prairie city of 50,000 on the banks of the Assiniboine River, they had won two golds, a silver and three bronzes.

“Tokyo 2020!” declared Angels sprinter Nnenna Ibe, a gold medallist in the 4 x 100-metre relay.

Flying Angels Academy, with about 200 athletes of all ages at nine locations around the Greater Toronto Area, competes throughout the United States and Caribbean, but assistant head coach Justice McInnis said the Legion meet is a can’t-miss.

“It’s important because you want to be ranked in the country and in order to be ranked, you have to compete against the top athletes in the country,” said McInnis. “That’s why we come. It gives us a working point throughout the year.

“This is a highlight of the season. So, we make a trip out of it.”

Athletes parade onto the track at the Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships in Brandon, Man. [Stephen J. Thorne]

Athletes from all provinces and territories travelled to the Brandon Community Sportsplex, newly renovated to the tune of $1.2 million. Almost half the athletes—317—were sponsored by Legion branches. The rest represented clubs like the Flying Angels. These included the Airdrie Aces from Alberta, Golden Ears Athletics from British Columbia, Dynamique de Laval from Quebec, Quill Plains Track and Field from Saskatchewan, Prairie Storm Athletics from Manitoba, Saugeen Track and Field from Ontario and Nova Scotia’s Pictou County Athletics.

Both the opening and closing ceremonies were laced with the traditions and historical context that only the Legion can offer, especially in this year, the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Banners around the track proclaimed Olympians who had competed in the Legion nationals, including Charmaine Crooks, Angela Bailey, Robert Esmie, Glenroy Gilbert and Melissa Bishop.

There were motivational and educational speakers: Athletics Canada sent Olympian Alex Genest from Montreal to relate the circuitous route he took to steeplechase silver at the Pan American Games; sports psychologist Kirsten Worth explained the role mental processes play in athletic performance; Sarah Dentry, a veteran doing post-doctoral research on mental and physical toughness in extreme environments, described how she overcame adversity on two polar treks.

The stands were replete with scouts watching for new and promising talent. Over three days of competition, they weren’t disappointed.

Shamir Khan of Ontario wins the under-18 long jump. [Stephen J. Thorne]

The Legion’s male athlete of the games, 15-year-old Marcus Renford from Team Ontario, won four golds and a silver. He ran the only two sub-11-second 100-metre dashes in the under-16s (10.96 in preliminaries and 10.97 in the final, his first under-11s). Renford also leaped to a personal best 6.76 metres in the long jump. It was his second time at the Legion meet.

“Marcus is a very talented athlete with a very, very good future in both jumps and sprints,” said Jamal Miller, a coach at Toronto’s Extreme Velocity Track Club. “He’s definitely on the right path. I see him doing great things.”

The Legion’s female athlete of the Games, Trinity Tutti, swept her three throwing events, setting two national records along the way—17.05 metres in her favourite event, the shot put, and 49.25 metres in discus. Her hammer throw at 56.32 metres was a personal best.

These three golds brought her total medal haul over four Legion meets to 10, including seven gold.

Trinity Tutti of Ontario throws the shot. [Stephen J. Thorne]

“It was a good way to finish,” said the Welland, Ont., native, who is in her final year of high school, where she also plays basketball and volleyball. “I’m excited. Exhausted. Happy. I love this meet. I’ve enjoyed it every single year. There’s always really good competition and new people. It’s awesome.”

Myles Misener-Daley, 16, of Hamilton Olympic Club swept the under-18 men’s speed events, taking gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre sprints. He clocked the fastest time of the meet during the 100-metre preliminaries, a 10.74.

The women’s high jump came down to British Columbia teammates Alexa Porpaczy and Trinity Hasma. Porpaczy, 17, came out on top at 1.75 metres. Nova Scotia’s Bella Willett took bronze.

B.C. coach Laurier Primeau described the Legion meet as one of the most important events of the year, both for the competition and the social/cultural experience.

“I don’t think I can overstate the value of this event on the pathway to junior national teams, senior national teams and ultimately world championships and Olympics,” he said. “If you look at some of the banners around here bearing some of the names that started at the Legion championships and moved on to great things for Canada, it’s an incredible list.

“Athletics Canada and those athletes owe much to the Legion for its sponsorship and continued support over the years.”

B.C.’s Alexa Porpaczy makes a winning high jump. [Stephen J. Thorne]

The country’s top-ranked female high-jumper under 18, Porpaczy says she loves the sport as much for the camaraderie as the competition. She, Hasma and Willett are close friends, largely due to their experiences together at the Legion championships over the past four years.

“The atmosphere at the track is so nice,” said the White Rock, B.C., native. “You make friends really easily with everyone and the sport is really technical, so you’re always able to build off of what you do.”

Added Willett: “When they said in the speeches…that you’ll make friends that’ll last a lifetime, they really meant it. I know these girls will be with me till the end.”

The Legion’s roots in youth sport date back almost to its beginning, when First World War veterans got together to discuss what they could do for the children of soldiers killed in action. Sports had a long, wide reach.

Dominion Command Sports Chairman, Angus Stanfield, said the Legion was primarily a social club at the time. Youth sports, he said, was “step one to [the Legion] becoming a service organization.”

It started as a coaching camp in the 1950s, evolved into a small track meet, and in 2009, it was opened to non-Legion-affiliated groups.

“It has been a real evolution to where it is now,” said Stanfield, adding that awareness is spreading. “There is nothing else in Canada for kids of that age to compete with one another at the national level. Nothing.”

Grace Fetherstonhaugh (right, top) wins the women’s under-18 2,000-metre steeplechase; Zachary Wyatt of B.C. takes the lead in the men’s under-18 2,000-metre steeplechase; Nnenna Ibe of the Flying Angels Academy in Toronto hands off to teammate Cassandra Garcia in the under-18 4 x 100-metre relay. [Stephen J. Thorne]

Brandon signed on to the event in a big way. The Brandon Sun ran two front pages from the meet, included an insert and gave it wide coverage. The local Ford dealership laid on a fleet of vehicles and a security company staffed the meet.

A crew from Banfield Agency from Ottawa streamed about eight hours of live coverage on social media, garnering more than 50,000 views on Facebook.

Each year, Legion athletes stay an extra day after competition concludes, taking part in activities and attending a banquet, where this year Stanfield gave them a moment they’ll not likely forget.

Stanfield’s grandfather, Donald Kennedy, an immigrant born in Scotland in 1892, played the bagpipes with the Cameron (Winnipeg) Highlanders Regiment on that April day in 1917 when Canadian troops advanced on Vimy.

Starting when he was six, Stanfield learned to play the pipes under Kennedy’s tutelage and, at the banquet in Brandon, the grandson played the very Henderson pipes that Kennedy had been issued when he joined the regiment in 1915.

Stanfield played a medley, concluding with a particularly moving rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Young athletes all over the room, wearing suits and gowns in stark contrast to their track attire, quietly wept.

Trinity Tutti (left) of Ontario receives the Leroy Washburn Award for the top female athlete from Washburn; Marcus Renford of Ontario receives the Jack Stenhouse Award for the top male athlete from Dominion Command Sports Committee Chairman Angus Stanfield. [Stephen J. Thorne]

Each team dispatched a male and female athlete to the dais to deliver thanks and tributes in French and English. Félix Thérien, a middle-distance runner from Quebec, delivered a moving tribute and led a moment’s silence for a former Legion games athlete, Hubert Chevrette-Bélisle of Repentigny, Que., a hurdler and captain in the Royal 22nd Regiment who died on July 24 at age 27.

He was “someone we all know in Quebec,” Thérien said. “He was one of the ambassadors of my track club.”

On a lighter note, the hands-down funniest speaker was Levi Moulton, a distance runner from Newfoundland and Labrador attending his final Legion meet. He riotously likened the Legion games experience to the stages of teenage dating, from the awkward first date through the disillusionment of two subsequent dates.

“For this year—the fourth date—I trained like crazy, prepared myself the best I could, got here and realized: no matter what I do, there’s always a boy from Ontario who’s better.”

The Legion nationals return to Brandon next year.