Following trials in Nanaimo earlier this month, four athletes who call the Cowichan Valley home or attend school here have been named to Team BC for the Legion Youth and Midget Track and field Nationals in Saint-Therese, Quebec on Aug. 5-11.
Chicago Bains and Rachel Jerome will represent B.C. in the youth championships for 16- and 17-year-olds, while Sion Griffiths and Madison Heisterman will compete in the midget event for 15-year-olds. Bains and Griffiths are both members of the CVAC Jaguars track team.
Bains, who calls Duncan home and attends Cowichan Secondary School, made the team in the 100m hurdles, the event in which she won gold in 2013 and silver in 2014. Jerome, a Ladysmith product who attends Brentwood College School, will compete in the long jump in Quebec.
Bains finished first at the Team BC trials in both the 100m hurdles and 200m dash, setting new personal bests in both events: 13.84 seconds and 24.82 seconds, respectively. Jerome won the long jump with a leap of 5.41 metres, 14 cm ahead of her closest competition.
Griffiths, another Brentwood student, who lives in Cowichan Bay, was named to the midget team for javelin, and Heisterman, who lives in Nanaimo and attends Queen Margaret’s School, was selected for the 1200m.
At the trials, Griffiths placed first in the midget boys javelin and second in hammer throw. Heisterman won both the midget girls 1200m and 800m.
Another CVAC athlete, Casey Heyd, finished second in the youth girls 100m dash at the trials and surpassed the national qualifying standard for the 12th time, but was left off the provincial team as BC Athletics opted to forgo the girls sprint events altogether. She will still compete at nationals as an independent athlete. Heyd also finished 10th in the 200m dash in Nanaimo.
Also competing in the trials at the youth level, Nicole Lindsay placed fourth in the girls 400m dash and seventh in the 200m, while Keiran Marrett-Hitch was second in high jump. At the midget level, Danae Gendall was seventh in the girls 100m and ninth in the 200m dash preliminaries, missing the final by 0.02 seconds.
Taryn Smiley finished second in both the junior women’s (18-19) 100m and 200m at the same meet, but was not in contention for a Team BC berth, as the junior nationals had already taken place.
