Thunderbirds invade Oregon and California

Thunderbird athletes were in action at the Mt. Sac Relays and Oregon Relays over the weekend. Erica Digby contested the 1500m at Mt. Sac and finished with a time of 4:23.61. Rachel Cliff clocked a time of 16:07.89 in the Mt. Sac 5000m. Both Erica and Rachel will be competing at the Payton Jordan meet at Stanford University this weekend. They are looking to better the FISU qualifying marks of 4:18.00 and 16:00.00. At the Oregon Relays in Eugene, the Thunderbirds were led by Matthew So's 3rd place finish in the 800m. His time of 1:54.87 was just off his personal best and shows that he is ready for an excellent high school season. Sophie Dodd finished an impressive 7th in the 800m with a time of 2:17.20. Sophie and Matthew will both be racing at the Ken Shannon Invitational at the University of Washington on May 4th and will be looking to better their personal best times of 1:54.47 and 2:17.00. Other Thunderbirds in action in Oregon were Audrey Warner and Tessa Ladner. Both Audrey and Tessa ran personal best times in the 1500m (4:52.21 and 5:01.69). Congratulations to all of our athletes that competed in Oregon and California...well done!

Thunderbirds Take Emilie Mondor Meet by Storm

A large number of Thunderbird athletes opened the 2013 outdoor season this past Saturday at the Emilie Mondor Meet at SFU.  There were some encouraging performances for so early in the year.

Ethan Strome opened his 400m Hurdles season with a scorching 56.90 clocking, a huge personal best. Natalie Cryderman, Emily Russell, Michelle Yee and Sajeda Win opened the season with strong 200m performances. Matthew Chan, Chantel Van Hombeeck and Win also ran exceptional times in the 100m as well, Van Hombeeck with a massive personal best!  Amabel Stokes and Sean Szeremeta ran excellent opening races at 400m. 

Twelfth Grader Youle Chen won the Men’s HJ by clearing 1.90m, besting the University jumpers from UBC and SFU. He was a whisker away from making 1.95m, which would have equalled his outdoor personal best.

Ninth Grader Gabriela Aquilini finished second in the Women’s HJ by clearing 1.50m in her first outdoor meet of the season, the same height cleared by the winning jumper from UBC. She too was a whisker away from clearing 1.55m, which would have been a new personal best for this talented young athlete. Emily Huser, competing for UBC, cleared 1.45m to finish in 4^th place. Emily also placed 3^rd in Triple Jump with a jump of 10.31m.

Ahmad Nizamani competed in the Long Jump with a leap of 6.21m.  Sophie Pauls taking part in her first meet of the season kept busy Long Jumping, Throwing the Shot and running the 4 x 400m.  Emily Lim took part in the Shot Put and Javelin.  Ness Murby competing in her first track meet since 2010 threw a new personal best in the Shot Put with a throw of 7.88m. Ness is a visually impaired athlete. 

Next up for the Thunderbirds on April 26th/27th is the VOC Elementary Meet at UBC for the JD's and the South Fraser Invitational at Bear Creek Park for the High School athletes.