Six weeks before the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations track and field meet, Quinn Rungi-Ruston had his first introduction to pole vaulting.
“My mom (Shari Ruston) thought it would be a pretty cool sport for me to try but it’s kind of funny. I am afraid of heights. Pole vault isn’t that high so I thought I would try it out,” the Grade 10 student at Greater Fort Erie Secondary School said.
Ruston, a former post secondary track and field athlete, knew some of the coaches at the Bolton Pole Vault Club and that’s where Quinn began his journey that would ultimately result in a silver medal this spring in the novice boys pole vault at the OFSAA track and field meet at York University in Toronto.
“Wow. There were so many good pole vaulters there and so many good coaches. It was amazing,” Rungi-Ruston said.
The 15-year-old Ridgeway resident started training in Bolton twice a week and he fell in love with the discipline.
“It was pretty cool. It is such an amazing sport and so different. It was quite the experience and I liked it right off the bat.”
He admits he was anything but an instant success.
“I wasn’t very good until OFSAA,” he said.
Greater Fort Erie’s junior male athlete of the year started his pole vault journey at the Zone 3 meet when he jumped 2.45 metres, tied for third and advanced to the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association championships.
“It was harder to get out of zone than the SOSSA meet and OFSAA regionals. It was supposed to be easy to move on but it was quite hard.”
He would end up winning SOSSA before placing third at OFSAA South Regionals to advance to OFSAA.
Rungi-Ruston’s goal at the start of the season was to jump 2.2 metres by the end of the season but he ended up winning OFSAA silver with a leap of 3.1 metres, recording five personal best along the way at OFSAA.
He credits the rapid improvement to GFESS coaches, Dave Adamek and Sarah Galas, and the entire coaching staff at Bolton.
“I had a very supportive group of coaches,” he said. “It was a great group of people.”
He gave particular credit for his OFSAA medal to Bolton coach Doug Wood, who continuously moved him up to bigger, taller and stronger poles.
“He found the right pole for me and then it just clicked. And I had really good run-ups that day. My jumps themselves were not that pretty but they worked.”
It was a great moment when the silver medal was placed around his neck
“I was still in shock. I was not prepared to get a silver medal and it didn’t seem real.”
The silver medal gives Rungi-Ruston motivation to keep working hard and he is resuming training shortly and has plans to train in the winter.
“My next goal is to be able to invert (swing the body upside down with the hips above the head) in pole vault,” he said. “I am not close yet and that is going to take a lot more practice.”
Rungi-Ruston is a multi-sport athlete who plays travel soccer with the Fort Erie Sting and travel volleyball with the Niagara Falls Rapids. This past year at GFESS, he was the junior MVP of the volleyball, track and field and tennis teams and rookie of the year for the swim team.
He can credit much of that success to an impressive gene pool. His mom won multiple OFSAA medals in track and field and his dad, Arne Rungi, was a multiple OFSAA medalist in badminton. Both parents went on to have excellent post secondary sports careers at York University, with Arne sharing male athlete of the year honours in 1998-99.
Not surprisingly, the family is intensely competitive and is always trying to best each other in ping pong, tennis, pickleball, beach volleyball and swimming to name a few sports.
“We like to win against each other and we don’t like losing,” Rungi-Ruston said.
He had no idea his mom had won so many OFSAA medals in track and field and there is competition in that regard as well. Instead of medals though, the competition is for getting to OFSAA in different sports and Rungi-Ruston has his work cut out for him.
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