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This article was published 13/07/2022 (1417 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRIDGWATER

FORT GARRY

A Bridgwater youth’s outstanding performance at a recent provincial pentathlon meet can’t be chalked up to beginner’s luck — though he is new to the sport.

Brady Fay, 16, delivered a combined score that smashed the provincial record for his age category.

“I hadn’t done much track training before this,” Fay said. “Going into it, I knew I was there to win it, but I didn’t know who else would be there.”

The points Fay earned for his high jump, long jump and the 100-metre race set him ahead of the other athletes, he says. His shot put and 800-metre scores were above average, too.

Fay has a busy couple of months before he enters Grade 11 at Vincent Massey Collegiate this fall. At press time, he was preparing to fly to Kelowna, B.C., to play tackle football with Team Toba at the Canada Cup national championship.

In August, Fay will travel to to the other side of the country — Charlottetown, P.E.I. — to play flag football for Manitoba..

“I want to be the best that I can. I want to achieve greatness,” Fay said.

“To get to all these practices and do all this work, it’s really about the end goal of being great at what I love to do.”

A packed schedule is business as usual for the teen. Fay played junior varsity football for the Vincent Massey Trojans as a running back and receiver. He was named team captain.

“It was a good season, overall,” Fay said.

Then basketball season began and, with point guard Fay as team captain, the JV Trojans brought home the West Winnipeg Athletic Conference championship.

His indoor soccer season with South Winnipeg C.C. yielded similar successes. Fay scored roughly 50 goals in about a dozen games.

“We won the championship. Same with the outdoor season before that,” he said.

This past spring brought a unique opportunity. Massey’s JV track team lacked enough athletes to form a cross-country team so the varsity coach invited younger athletes to join their older peers. The combined team won silver in a notoriously challenging five-kilometre race at Spruce Woods Provincial Park.

“It was a super hilly course. You were always going either up or down,” he said.

He clocked a time of 20:46 — his fastest five-kilometre race to date.

Liam Francis, Fay’s track coach and social sciences teacher at Vincent Massey Collegiate, applauds the youth’s diligence and willingness to accept and apply criticism. Francis uses the word phenomenal to describe Fay’s pentathlon performance.

“He’s very technical,” Francis said. “It’s nice to see that so long without sports that there are kids that want to do everything and can find a way to do it all.”

Fay is eyeing a spot on Tough Track, a track and field club where Fay could fine-tune his running under Francis’ mentorship.

“I ran track back in university, and I know what it takes to win. And I watched this guy walk out on the track and set records,” Francis said, with a laugh.

Fay plans to attend university on a sports scholarship after graduation.