Burnaby Central’s Nathan Mah led a strong complement of city athletes to the upcoming B.C. high school track and field championships in Langley in June.
Mah won all three boys’ sprint events, including a sub-11-second 100 metres, at Central track on Tuesday. He also placed first in the 200m in a time of 22.31 and in the 400m in 53 seconds flat.
Central also qualified Marco Sherwood in the long jump and Michael Fischer in the shot put.
Racquel Milosavljevic made it through in the girls’ 100 and 200m for Central.
Moscrop’s Yousif Masoud also qualified in the boys’ 400m. West Burnaby teammate Jonathan Hanam will compete in the 800m, while Fidel Hodge made it in the triple jump.
Byrne Creek had two boys qualify – Abdul Bangura in the 200m and Werd Khader in the 1,500m. Kimberly Ma also qualified in the girls’ 100m hurdles for Byrne Creek.
Burnaby Mountain have a pair of girls seeing double duty at the provincials.
Robyn Lee qualified in both the 800 and 1,500m, while Lauren Watson will compete in the discus and javelin.
Burnaby North twins Allyson and Christina Dickson both earned entries in the 400m. Christina will also compete at 800m.
Jennifer Shannon will compete for Burnaby South in both the 1,500m and steeplechase.
New Westminster will be a favourite to repeat as the girls’ overall aggregate champion this year.
Raquel Tjernagel is race-ready in the sprints, while defending multi-events champion Nina Schultz is poised again to compete for the most outstanding athlete.
Tjernagel, who recently ran the fastest time of any North American high schooler to date, qualified in the 100m in 11.50 and the 200m in 23.78.
Schultz will compete in the high jump and long and triple jumps, as well as the girls’ heptathlon.
Schultz qualified in the high jump at 1.7m. She also leapt more than 11 metres in the triple jump.
New West’s Shea Jobson-Stier will race the 3,000m and 2,000m boys’ steeplechase.
Last year, NWSS won both the overall and girls’ aggregate banners for the first time ever at the provincial high school championships.
Junior provincial qualifiers also included: Emily Chilton, Grace Fetherstonhaugh, Devin Strome, Sarah Forgie and Briana Bates from New West; Lauren Gaffney and Ceceilla Petrelli from Mountain; and Moscrop’s Fiorella Ravelli in the girls’ division.
Junior boys included: Ben Tjernagel and Joshua Filafilo from New West; Ephrem Belaineh and Diego Medrano of South; Central’s Eric Zhang, Paul Perdido, Dmitri Williamson and Tomas Ward; and Victor Dinamarra of North.
The B.C. combined events championship will be run on May 22 and 23.
The provincial track and field meet will take place two weeks later at McLeod Athletic Park in Langley from June 4 to 6.
