TWU athletes impress

 

Saturday was a record breaking day in Edmonton for the Spartans track team

 
 
 

For the second weekend in a row, Trinity Western University track and field athlete Liza Whitehead posted an quicksilver time in the 60m.

The Surrey native finished second at Alberta's Golden Bear Open with a personal best time of 7.57, while Spartans' Jamie Sinclair broke the TWU men's pole vault record with a clearance of 4.40m Saturday at the Universiade Pavilion.

The Spartans also set school records in both the men's and women's 4x200m relays.

The women's team, which featured Hazel Ross, Anastasia Pearse, Maya Daly, and Whitehead, finished third overall with a time of 1:43.23, which has the team fourth in the CIS rankings.

The men's team, which featured James Linde, Stephen Humphrey, Tunji Taylor-Lewis, and Sinclair, finished fifth with a time of 1:32.61, which has the team ninth in the CIS rankings.

Trinity Western did not have previous records set in the 4x200m relay.

Sinclair's mark, which puts him in a tie for seventh in the CIS rankings and second amongst Canada West athletes, bettered Jesse Phillips' record height of 4.34m, which he cleared last Saturday at the University of Washington Indoor Preview.

Sinclair's clearance was also more than 20 centimetres higher than the 4.19m he managed in the Indoor Preview.

Whitehead's time, which maintains her position atop the CIS rankings, was 0.06 faster than the time she clocked last Saturday at the Indoor Preview.

The Spartans' results were all the more impressive given many of them didn't arrive in Edmonton until 2 a.m. Saturday morning.

Due to the fog in Abbotsford, the Spartans Friday morning flights were delayed to the evening, forcing the alteration of schedules.

"All in all, it was a good weekend, but not what we had gone to Edmonton to do," said Spartans' coach Laurier Primeau. "We made do with the events we had. We had some pretty remarkable results given the dramatic change in scheduling that resulted because of the fog in Abbotsford and a change in flight times."

Alongside Whitehead, Daly and Pearse also competed in the 60m with Daly finishing ninth in 7.89 and Pearse finishing 13th with a time of 7.93 in the finals, but a preliminary time of 7.91.

On the men's side, all four relay runners competed in the 60m with Sinclair finishing ninth in 7.14, Humphrey and Linde finishing in a tie for 16th in 7.22, and Taylor-Lewis, who did not qualify for the finals, posting a preliminary time of 7.40. Both Humphrey and Linde ran 7.20 in their preliminary races.

The Spartans are back in action Jan. 26 at the University of Washington Invitational.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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