Noah’s career arcing upwards
Like many other local athletes, Noah Dommasch is enjoying the chance to be a part of the Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games.
“I have never had the opportunity to be on a team this big in an event close to my hometown,” the 19-year-old St. Catharines resident said. “It is so cool and I am still processing it. It’s amazing.”
The Sir Winston Churchill graduate has been on Team Ontario for the Legion national youth track and field championships on two occasions but this is his first experience with a multi-sport Games.
“It takes things to another level and it makes you so excited to continue the process of training to make these types of teams,” the third-year University of Guelph business student said.
Dommasch competed in the qualifiers for the high jump Wednesday afternoon and unfortunately strained his patella on his second jump and couldn’t continue. It was a tough break in what has been a great week.
“The high points are getting the chance to talk to other high-calibre athletes in different sports and being able to train at this facility (Canada Games Park) and prepare for specific individual events.”
The heptathlon specialist at Guelph qualified for the Canada Games in high jump based on his performance at the trials earlier this year.
“High jump has always been my strongest event in the multi-events and this summer my coach and I took a step back and just focused on training on specific events so we can come out ready to fight in the heptathlon in the upcoming indoor season,” Dommasch said. “That is why I am just high jumping here. It is to help get these technical events fine-tuned.”
His expectations for the Canada Games were to be competitive.
“Everyone will give you a different answer as to why they are here but for me personally — and I think a lot of other athletes can relate to what I am saying — I am here for the high level of competition.”
Dommasch graduated from Sir Winston Churchill in 2020 and was fortunate enough that his Grade 11 marks were good enough to land him a track and field scholarship at Guelph.
“I spent the year training on-line and since then I have made the move to the decathlon. I have been focusing on the indoor version of the decathlon which is the heptathlon (high jump, the shot put, the 200-meter dash, the long jump, the javelin throw, and the 800-meter run).”
He admits training on-line for a year with no competition wasn’t easy.
“My approach was to control what was controllable. What was controllable was that I could still work on my weaknesses. I was a very inexperienced decathlete at the time so I was able to work on my flexibility, my mobility and overall strength in the muscles I never knew I had before. That helped me coming into my second year of university.”
At the 2022 USPORTS indoor championships, he placed ninth in the heptathlon and won the high jump portion of the event with a meet record jump of 1.99 metres. Replicating that jump would have placed him first in Wednesday’s qualifying.
“That was close to my personal best. I had just broke 2 metres in a heptathlon prior to that.”
He believes he has made significant strides as an athlete in the past year.
“I never understood the difference of being in good shape and being in good technical shape. I was always in great shape and a fit person but I wasn’t necessarily the most technical athlete in my sport. Learning how to be a more technical athlete is one of the biggest changes you can make. It separates you from the competition.”
The next step in his progression will be results based.
“I need to start hitting some better marks in some events that have been holding me back in USPORTS. If you look at my statistics, the pole vault and the hurdles were my lowest marks and now I feel a lot more confident going into those events,” the Royal City Track Club member said. “That should be a game changer for me next year.”
He has several goals in mind for his track and field future.
“I want to make as many memories as possible, make as many teams as possible and get as close to my goals as possible.”
He is looking forward to returning to in-class learning at Guelph.
“I like school. It puts you in a good routine, especially as an athlete. It is a lot easier to study and train rather than work and train.”