OUR HISTORY

The original Oakville Track and Field Club was created for one athlete, a 17-year-old student at Central Technical School in Toronto. As an outstanding sprinter and jumper, his coach, a teacher at the school who lived in Oakville, decided to enter him into the British Empire Games Trials, being held in Toronto.  

Winning both the long and triple jump at the Trials, Sam Richardson became the youngest member of the 1934 Team to travel to London, England.  His age, however, didn't keep him from winning the long jump and finishing third in the triple jump.

Two years later, again the youngest member of the Team, he travelled to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics, jumping against Jesse Owen. He was 14th in the long jump, 20th in the triple jump, and ran the first leg of the 400m relay team that finished fifth in the Final, after qualifying with second place in their heat.

With the advent of World War II and its aftermath, the club did not re-surface until the 1960's, when Wille McKay took the reins, turning out high-level athletes Zenon Andrusyshyn, Mike Mercer, Frank Marlatt, Brian Donnelly, Serena Doucette, Kaiva Celdoma, Ingrid Goetche, and others.  When he moved to Ottawa in 1968, the club was left under the stewardship of local teacher Harvey Singleton for one year.

One of McKays' athletes was planning to re-form the club in 1972, until Dave Lee agreed to form the Oakville Kiwanis Track Club, and, rather than creating a conflict, he agreed to help them.  That help culminated in the top-ranked Ontario club in 1976, but by 1979, favouritism from certain Executive members toward a select few athletes, led to a parting of the ways.

In 1980, The Oakville Track Club came into being for the third time.  To avoid confusion, however, members of the club compete under the name Athletiques International.. In 1996, it was under that name that Donovan Bailey, representing Canada, set an Olympic and World Record of 9.84 seconds over 100m