LIMA — A Lima youth track and field team will send 22 city athletes to the 2026 American Athletic Union Junior Olympic Games, as announced Wednesday at Mayor Sharetta Smith’s media briefing in council chambers.
The former C2K Striders Track Club featured an expanded roster of nearly 90 kids this season, ages 5 to 18, after combining with the Columbus Panthers Track Club. Through the athletes’ perseverance in challenging weather conditions, Coach Roderick Simpson Jr. said, the now-C2K Panthers placed 45 athletes — 22 from Lima — in the youth track and field national championships, which run Saturday, Aug. 1 to Saturday, Aug. 8 at the Drake University stadium in Des Moines, Iowa.
The C2K Panthers are taking donations to fund their national championship trip and future travel. To donate, funds should be dedicated to the group through the Lima Community Foundation at 207 W. Elm St., Lima.
Simpson said that the team merger helped solidify the Lima club while they were “lacking certain things” to compete at the highest level. The personnel connections with the Columbus group played a large role in that fortification, Simpson said.
“That coach (in Columbus), he’s the one who started the program in Lima. He just ended up leaving for job purposes,” Simpson said. “That’s when (Coach Chris Jackson) took over. So, you know, it’s one big family.”
#simpson #columbus #saturday
The former C2K Striders Track Club featured an expanded roster of nearly 90 kids this season, ages 5 to 18, after combining with the Columbus Panthers Track Club. Through the athletes’ perseverance in challenging weather conditions, Coach Roderick Simpson Jr. said, the now-C2K Panthers placed 45 athletes — 22 from Lima — in the youth track and field national championships, which run Saturday, Aug. 1 to Saturday, Aug. 8 at the Drake University stadium in Des Moines, Iowa.
The C2K Panthers are taking donations to fund their national championship trip and future travel. To donate, funds should be dedicated to the group through the Lima Community Foundation at 207 W. Elm St., Lima.
Simpson said that the team merger helped solidify the Lima club while they were “lacking certain things” to compete at the highest level. The personnel connections with the Columbus group played a large role in that fortification, Simpson said.
“That coach (in Columbus), he’s the one who started the program in Lima. He just ended up leaving for job purposes,” Simpson said. “That’s when (Coach Chris Jackson) took over. So, you know, it’s one big family.”
#simpson #columbus #saturday
4 months ago
