Daily Archives: August 6, 2021

Rice Lake Celebrates Hometown Runner’s Olympic Silver

Kenny Bednarek, a Rice Lake graduate, won a silver medal Wednesday in the 200 meter dash.

Rice Lake is celebrating after one of its own won the silver medal in the 200-meter dash this week, as WQOW and Spectrum New 1 reported this week.

Kenny Bednarek’s former high school coach, Jared Sasada, told News 1 he saw something special in the runner from a young age.

“We heard about him [in middle school] coming up through the ranks,” Sasada, now a science teacher in the Tomah Area School District, told Spectrum News 1. “We had him come out and run the 400-meter against some of our best 400-meter kids, and at about the 250-meter mark we found out he was not ‘middle school fast’— he was ready to go because he was getting ready to smoke some of the best runners that we already had on our team.”

Watch the coach being interview at Spectrum News 1’s story.