Region 1 championships make move to UMaine

It usually takes the better part of a year to organize and prepare for an event the magnitude of the USATF Junior Olympic Region 1 Track and Field Championships.

That hasn’t stopped the folks in the Maine Chapter USATF and at the University of Maine from accomplishing the feat in a mere two months.

On Friday, the first wave of more than 1,000 athletes ages 8 to 18 – along with their coaches, family and friends – will gather in Orono at the University of Maine’s Beckett Track and Field Complex to kick off the Region 1 championships.

The Maine track and field community rallied to make the meet happen after the USATF was forced to relocate the event from its original site in New York, according to UMaine assistant track coach Rolland Ranson.

“They asked us if we would bail them out,” said Ranson who has helped run meets such as the USATF National Masters Championships in 2002.

“We have the only facility in the state of Maine that can handle anything like this,” added Ranson, who credits Maine’s USATF contingent with rallying to meet the challenge of organizing the Junior Olympics championships on such short notice.

Don Berry, who heads Maine USATF, and the organization put together a team that includes meet director Ron Kelly, along with eastern Maine track mainstays Mary Cady, Dave Jeffrey and Glendon Rand.

“They are as good a group of people as there is in the country,” said Ranson, who is prohibited by NCAA rules from serving on the games committee. However, he has worked with UMaine officials, including assistant athletic director Jim Dyer, to make sure the facility and equipment are in place to make the meet a success.

This marks the fourth time Maine has hosted the Region 1 meet, which has been held in Orono twice previously and once was run in Augusta. Ranson said there will be between 60 and 80 officials working the event, which runs through Sunday.

Region 1 includes New York, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island. The top three finishers in each event, in all age divisions, qualify for the USATF National Junior Olympics Track and Field Championships scheduled July 27-Aug. 1 in Eugene, Ore.

Ranson said the Region 1 meet should provide a noticeable financial boost to the Greater Bangor economy.

“Once the people get here, they do love it,” Ranson said. “It’s a fun weekend. It’s exciting and it’s a quality track meet.”

The action begins at 1 p.m. Friday, featuring events in the decathlon, heptathlon, pentathlon and triathlon. Competition Saturday kicks off at 8 a.m., while Sunday’s events begin at 8:30 a.m.