“It was magical.”
Those are the three words Douglas Clement kept repeating as he summarized Wednesday’s Harry Jerome Track Classic that was held in front of an overflowing crowd of more than 3,000 people at Coquitlam’s Percy Perry Stadium.
Sure, no world records were set by the athletes, nor even many personal bests, but the chair of the Achilles Track and Field Society that organizes the event said the technical achievements of the competition took a back seat to the buzz it created.
“We had the magic of the connection between the crowds and the athletes,” Clement said. “It was more of an entertainment value than pure sport.”
Clement said the star power of Canadian Olympians like Andre De Grasse, Damian Warner and Melissa Bishop was an allure. But big name track stars like Donovan Bailey and Robert Esmie competed at previous Jerome Classics when it was held at Burnaby’s Swangard Stadium and never attracted the kind of throng of young people that mobbed De Grasse moments after he won the 100 m in a time of 10.17 seconds.
“That’s never happened like that before,” Clement said. “The crowd was absolutely ecstatic.”
That’s put the society behind the meet into a bit of a pickle.
It moved the meet to Coquitlam this year so the City of Burnaby could install a new surface at Swangard, which the Achilles group is helping pay for. And the unprecedented demand for tickets - the event sold out three weeks ago, a first for the Jerome - shows they could have filled the 6,000 seats there. But, said Clement, there’s no doubt something magical - that word again - happened at Percy Perry.
“We’re having to think things through here,” Clement said. He added if there are any delays to the installation of the new track in Burnaby, he’d have no hesitation to race the meet right back to Coquitlam.
“Everybody got behind this, and you could just see it culminating.”
