Aaron Brown.
Beach resident and Birchmount Park Collegiate grad Aaron Brown runs to a bronze-medal finish at the World Junior Track and Field Championships' men's 200-metre final in Moncton, New Brunswick on Friday. (July 23, 2010)
Courtesy photo/ATHLETICS CANADA
It was the 100-metre race that Beach resident Aaron Brown, a recent graduate this past summer from Scarborough's Birchmount Park Collegiate, qualified to compete in at the world junior track and field championships, which wrapped up Sunday, July 25 in Moncton.
But it was the 200m race on Friday, July 23, that he brought back a medal from.
He also had the honour to be the Canadian flagbearer at the closing ceremonies of the event.
Brown may have had the slowest time among those who qualified from the semifinal going into the final, but at the end of the race he was third fastest, earning a bronze medal in a personal best time of 21 seconds, flat.
"He was ecstatic," said his coach Bill Stephens, who was also at the event. "The crowd went nuts. I'm very proud of him."
The race was won by Shota Iizuka of Japan (20.67s) with silver going to Aliaksandr Linnikof Belarus (20.89).
"I was running blind from the outside so I did not see anybody until I got onto the straightaway," said Brown in a post-race interview posted on the Athletics Canada website. "They all started to pull away so I finished as strong as I could and I'm very happy to get the bronze medal.
"I really pushed it at the end. The crowd was a motivating factor for sure. I could hear them cheering me on so I wanted to give them something to be proud of. It was nerve-wracking waiting for the time to be posted. I honestly had no idea how close I was. I just kept saying please God, please don't leave me off the podium again. And when they flashed my name I just had to go to the ground and thank God.
"I knew this was my last race, since my 4-x-100m team did not make it through, so I wanted to leave everything on the track."
Brown finished fifth in the 100m final Wednesday, July 21.
"It was one of his worst starts," said his coach Bill Stephens adding starts are stressful and the pressure of the competition at the meet added even more tension.
Brown completes an impressive duo of medals, having earned silver at last year's world youth championships (for 16 and 17 year olds) in the 100m event in Italy.
Brown is now slated to compete on home turf this week at the 2010 Canadian Track and Field Championships on this week at the Varsity Centre from Wednesday, July 28 to Saturday, July 31. Qualifying heats for the 100m are scheduled for Friday, July 30.
Brown, 18, who was also a football star at Birchmount Park and races for the Phoenix track club out of Birchmount Stadium, is heading to the University of Southern California on a track scholarship.
-Norm Nelson, Michele McLean