Nizamani Breaks out at Western Washington Open, Thunderbirds Compete at Stanford, Bear Creek Park & UBC

Ahmad Nizamani opened his outdoor season with a personal best in the Long Jump at the Western Washington Open on Friday evening in Bellingham.  His 5th round jump of 6.71m was a personal best and secured 2nd place overall. A great result for a high school junior competing against University athletes.

Leading the middle distance charge in Bellingham was Alex Kilpatrick, who finished 4th in the A section with a time of 1:56.18. Alex was closely followed by Jordan Maynard in a time of 1:56.79. Max Trummer ran a personal best time of 1:57.53 to place 2nd in the B section. Rounding out the Thunderbirds 800m crew was Kapil Anand who ran 2:06.93. 

In the sprints, Amabel Stokes ran a seasonal best of 57.11 in the 400m and came back an hour later to win the 200m in 25.80.  Sajeda Win competed in the 100m running 12.80 and came back with a great effort in the 200m as well.

Closer to home, rainy conditions and the cool weather didn't deter the Thunderbird high jumpers at Saturday's Fraser Valley High School meeting hosted by South Fraser Track Club at the Bear Creek Park track in Surrey.

Continuing his winning outdoor winning streak by winning the high school boys' event at 1m90, Youle Chen attempted a new PB height of 1m96, just missing on his final attempt.

Sophie Pauls showed excellent early season form in the wet conditions to win the high school girls event with a winning height of 1m50. Gabriela Aquilini debuted her new longer approach and finished 4th at 1m45, and demonstrated that she will be a force to be reckoned with in the very near future.

Rounding out the weekend results, on Sunday, Erica Digby and Rachel Cliff competed in the prestigious Payton Jordan Invitational meet at Stanford University. Erica contested the 1500m and placed third in her section with a personal best time of 4:19.78. Now that she has broken 4:20 the next target is the FISU standard of 4:18.00. Rachel Cliff contested the 5000m with the hopes of breaking 16:00 for the first time. She was on pace through 4000m but was not able to hold the pace to the finish. Her final time of 16:12.01 is close to her personal best. She will continue to work hard and has demonstrated that she is capable of running significant personal bests in the near future.

A total of thirty- three JD athletes from Thunderbirds participated at the UBC Track meet. Using any measurement of success the Thunderbirds performed wonderfully. The team came away with five gold, eight silver and seven bronze individual medals and one gold, a silver and three bronze team medals. TBirds showed strongly in all areas, sprints, hurdles, field and distance. Especially enjoyable was watching the relay teams perform and the close races for the grade 7 girls in the 4*100 and Medley events. Performance wise every one participated with focus and energy and most importantly everyone had a fun weekend. As a team we earned enough points to be the top club at the meet. Well done!

Congratulations to all!