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This past week at the Fraser Valley Championships, Valley Royal athletes and sisters, Cassidy and Marley Hutchison showed the competition what they are made of.  Both competed in the junior category, earning impressive personal bests in several of their events.  Cassidy, the younger of the two, competed in the 800m and the 400m.  She earned a PB of 1:02.26 in the 400m, easily qualifying for the BC High School Provincials.  Marley earned personal bests in both her individual events and placed high enough that she will be joining her sister and the rest of the Valley Royals team at Provincials.  Perhaps even more satisfying for Cassidy and Marley is that both of their relay teams qualified for the upcoming meet and they will be working together to go for a spot on the podium.

Led by Vikramjit Gondara’s record breaking throw in the senior boy’s hammer throw, a good number of Valley Royal members qualified for the Provincial High School Championships that take place in Nanaimo during the first week in June.

Gondara set the pace for club athletes by surpassing previous record marks in the hammer throw at both the Fraser Valley and BC High School Championship level.   Gondara tossed the 6-k hammer 59.86m a distance that surpassed the existing BC high school record by more then five meters.  For good measure, Gondara also won the discus event with a toss of 42.46m.

Teammate Jayden Driver was a multiple medalist in the throwing events.  Driver gave the club a one, two punch in both the hammer and discus with second place finishes in both events.  Driver’s toss of 53.34m in the hammer also surpassed the previous record at the Fraser Valley and BC levels.  Driver added to his medal collection with a third place finish in the shot put (11.51m).

Tasha Willing, as usual, was a multi event medalist in the senior women’s throwing events.  Willing, who represented Chilliwack Secondary at this meet, was first in the shot put (11.98m), second in discus (11.98m) and third in hammer (47.76m).

Rowan Hamilton made up for a disappointing finish in the junior boys’ hammer event where he fouled three times by returning to win the gold medal in the discus throw with a toss of 45.65m.

Three middle distance runners won multiple medals and established personal bests during the three-day meet.  Daniel James won gold medals in the junior boys 800m (2:05.48) and 1500m (4:19.18) and placed third in the 400 meters (53.05), an event in which the first three runners were separated by less then 4/10ths of a second.  In the 800m James negative split by running his first lap in 64 seconds and the final lap in 61 seconds.

Tanner Geary, who was forced to miss last year’s Fraser Valley meet due to injury, made up for that occurrence by turning in personal bests in both the 1500 and 800 meter events.  Geary had an easy time winning the 1500 meters by running a blistering final 300 meters to finish with a time of 4:03.66.  In the 800m run, Geary was matched against Langley’s Dean Ellenwood who last year represented Canada internationally.   Geary led for most of the distance but was unable to hold Ellenwood off in the final few meters.  The event was won by Ellenwood (1:54.69) with Geary a step behind in a personal best 1:55.06.

Rachel Mortimer, a 15-year old grade nine runner, was finally of age to take part in a Fraser Valley Championship.   Mortimer made the best of her opportunity by taking part and winning three silver medals in the junior girl’s division.   She established personal best performances of 10:19 in the 3,000m and 4:49.42 in the 1500m.  Mortimer finished out her busy three days of competition with a second place clocking of 2:20.28 in the 800m.

Other medal performances by club athletes included Abresia Foote with a silver medal in the 1500m RW (9:09), Shaunika Suriya who placed second in the grade 8 girls’ high jump (1.45m), Devon Kular, second in the senior boys’ pole vault (3.00m), Tiger Wu 3rd in Senior Hammer and Amrin Bhangu with a 3rd in Senior Pole Vault.  Carson Setter claimed 1st place in the 4×100 m Sr. relay.

Hannah Konrad was under-par health wise during the meet but still managed to place fourth in the senior girls’ 400m (62.23) and gain automatic entry to the provincial championship.  Konrad will apply through the open zone to take part in the 800m in Nanaimo.

Two local schools won team titles:  Abby Christian 1st in the junior division and WJ Mouat first in the senior division.

Other qualifiers from the club for the BC High School Championships include the following:

Angela Gourley:  6th 100m hurdles Sr.:  7th 200m.

Cassidy Hutchinson:  4th 800m Jr.

Erica Johnson:  7th 1500m SC (pb 5:45.92).

Gurleen Gill: 7th  1500m

Kat Heppell, Kelly Harder, Kelsey Friesen: 6th  4 X 100m Relay Sr

Kelly Harder, Kelsey Friesen: 7th  4 X 400m Relay Sr

Devon Kular:   5th  4 X 100m Relay  Sr

Devon Kular:  2nd  4 X 400m Relay Sr

Devon Kular: 2nd  Pole Vault  Sr

Marley Hutchison: 6th  80mH, 4th 300mH, Jr

Kelly Harder:  8th 400mH, Sr

Carson Setter: 5th  100m Sr

Parmvir Waring: 7th  2000m Steeple Chase, 7th  3000m  Sr

Kate Sokolowski: 8th  800m  Sr

Amrin Bhangu:  4th  1500m Race Walk Sr

Hannah Lambert: 6th Javelin, Jr

Abresia Foote: 7th  Discus, 7th  Hammer, Sr

Parker Schlachter: 7th  Discus, 4th  Shot Put, 5th Hammer, Sr

Tiger Wu: 8th Discus Sr

Udesh Narang: 6th Hammer, Jr

Tanner Geary’s four-second personal best in the 800-meters and Vikramjit Gondara’s win in the hammer led Valley Royal performances Saturday at the Emilie Mondor Memorial held on the Simon Fraser University track.

Due to a mix up in the receipt of club entries, Geary was relegated to a weak section of the men’s 800-meters.  But instead of mopping about his status, Geary just took the lead, ran an aggressive race and finished first in his section with a time of 1:56.32 and four seconds in front of the second place finisher.  In addition, Geary’s time was a four second personal best and preps him for his race next week at the prestigious Oregon Relays in Eugene.

Vikramjit Gondara was not particularly happy with his performance but he still managed very creditable efforts for a 17-year old grade 11 athlete.  Throwing the 6kg hammer, Gondara recorded a distance of 54.64 meters in the hammer and followed that with in a toss of 39.60 meters in the discus for a second place finish. 

Jayden Driver, who will enter Simon Fraser University next September, had third place finishes in both the hammer (48.94m) and discus (37.20m).  Both performances demonstrated that Driver is well positioned to do well at both the upcoming high school provincial meet and then, hopefully, at the BC Athletic Association meets that include the BC Championship Jamboree.

Other medal performances by Valley Royal athletes saw Tasha Willing place second in the shot put (11.94m) and SFU graduate Lindsay Butterworth with a second place (56.35) in the women’s 400 meters, an event won by former Valley Royal athlete Chantel Desch (56.32).

Some good performances by the club’s younger athletes included 15-year old Rachel Mortimer with a second in her section of the 1500m (4:54.92), grade 10 runner Daniel James with a 2:04.64 clocking in the 800m, Kate Sokolowski who placed first in her section of the 800m (2:26.87) and Kristen Biela with a 4:11.75 in the 1500m.

OTHER VALLEY ROYAL PERFORMANCES AT THE MEET:

Hannah Konrad—4th in 400m section 2 (62.42)
Marley Hutchinson—4th in 400m section 1 (64.04)
Josephine Calverly—6th in 400m section 1 (66.38)
Cassidy Hutchinson—2nd in 800m section 1 (2:30.93); 3rd in 400m section 1 (2:30.93)

The Valley Royals Track & Field Club will be holding a Throws Clinic on April 9th at Clearbrook Park and Rotary Stadium from 10a.m. – 1p.m.

Valley Royals coach Harold Willers and former SFU coach Zenon Smiechowski will work with beginning, intermediate, or advanced throwers in the areas of discus, hammer, shot put, and javelin. Coaches are invited to attend as well.

The cost per athlete or coach is $25 and space is limited.

If you know of an athlete from your track team who is interested, please have him/her contact the Club Administrator, Christa McAuley, at [email protected]

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Congratulations to our Speed/Power athletes who competed in their first outdoor meet of the 2016 Track & Field season. This past weekend, a handful of VR athletes competed in the UBC Open with several earning PB’s.

Hannah Konrad 400m  1:02.79 (10th)

Josephine Calverley 800m  2:31.43 (12th)

Michael Lambert  HJ  1.95 PB!  (4th)

Django Lovett       HJ  2.20 PB!  (1st)