After missing a month of training, Ryan Graf forged on to compete in the 2012 Canadian Junior Track and Field championships in Winnipeg, Manitoba, July 27-29.
He placed fourth in the 100 metres with a time of 10.88, seventh in the 200 metres with a time of 22.01, and third in the men’s 4x100-metre relay.
Overall, he said he was pretty happy with the results.
“My times weren’t that great, but I went out with an injury,” Graf said when he got back from the meet. “Considering I missed about a month of training, the times were kind of where I expected them to be.”
The Humboldt sprinter who runs for the Saskatoon Track and Field team, pulled a hamstring earlier on in the season, causing him a setback but not daunting him to miss out on any chances to compete. He recently participated in the Olympic trials in Calgary at the end of June, but had to forgo competing in the 200-metre semifinal so as not to do more damage to the pulled muscle.
“The trouble with hamstring injuries is that they are so weak,” commented Graf. “I’ll go back to my trainer next year and we’ll work on keeping the hamstring down.”
Of the competition, Graf said that it had been really hot over the weekend, making it a little harder for the athletes who had to deal with the weather as well as their heats.
“But everybody that went down there had a good time,” he added.
This week, Graf is off again — this time to the 2012 Saskatchewan Summer Games in Meadow Lake — but he will be wearing a different hat. Instead of competing in the races, Graf will be attending as a coach.