Bazil Spencer won gold in Men’s U18 high jump at the 2018 National Legion Track and Field Championships in Brandon, Manitoba last Saturday (Aug 10) with a jump of 2.01 metres.
The leap was a personal best for Spencer and the highest jump for an under-18 competitor in Canada this year.
The 16-year-old Quesnel native had already clinched the win over Team B.C. runner-up, Aiden Grout, when he cleared a bar set at 1.98 metres, but was intent on setting a personal best, so opted to keep trying for higher.
On his second attempt at 2.01 metres, he cleared the bar for the new personal high mark.
The victory was not without its challenges, however.
Spencer says he got to the University of Manitoba Fieldhouse track feeling good and “in the zone” when he was performing his warm up jumps. Having used 1.85 metres as a practice jump often in his training, he decided to begin the competition at 1.86 metres, and cleared it with ease.
That was when a spot of trouble presented itself, in the form of a missing marker.
“When I went to do my first jump at 1.89 metres, I was looking at the ground trying to find the tape that marked where I was to start my run from, but it wasn’t there,” Spencer says. “Apparently it got stuck on someone’s foot and was removed.”
Individual jumpers mark out their own specific spot on the run up, so they can repeat the same motions before jumping. With a time limit attached to each attempt, Spencer began getting impatient.
“I had no idea where I was starting and by the time [I decided to go] there was only 10 seconds left on the clock, so guessed where my mark was and missed by a lot.”
He asked the officials if he could remark his spot before his next jump and was told that would be OK, but says the clock ran anyway, resulting in him only having one more opportunity to clear 1.89 m.
“By that time I was stressing out, my mom was stressing out and Dylan [Armstrong], my coach, was stressing out too.
“If I had missed the next one it would have been over with no shot at a medal.”
Spencer placed his mark just before the third try, took a couple extra seconds to breathe and was able to clear the bar at 1.89 metres.
“Once I cleared that one, it was good,” he says. “I felt relieved, then kept clearing the other heights easily.”
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His main competitor and team mate, Grout, who is from the Lower Mainland, was able to clear all his jumps on the first go until he attempted the 1.98 metres, which he was unable to leap over in the three tries allotted.
The two teens have been in competition for some time now.
“I first met him at B.C. Summer Games in Grade 9,” Spencer says. “He won it and I came third.”
“But it wasn’t until this year they we’ve actually started to get really connected and now it’s always me and him coming one and two.
“It’s great for Team B.C.”
The province is leaps and bounds ahead of others, with its U16 Men’s competitors finishing first and second in the meet as well.
While the season may be over, high jump will still be top of mind for Spencer in the coming months.
Armstrong, his coach and a former Olympic shot put competitor, is suggesting he move south for the school year in order to ramp up his training in the off season with the Kamloops Track and Field Club.
As daunting as the big move might seem, Spencer says in order to go further in his career, he needs to be training all the time.
There is, of course, the question of how his parents might feel.
“My dad moved away when he was a kid, so he sort of knows what’s happening, but my mom is pretty emotional about it and doesn’t want me to leave,” Spencer says.
“But she knows it’s for the best, so she’s just got to take her heart out of it, and it’ll be good.”
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