Smith Achieves Olympic Standard, #1 Ranking

Smith Achieves Olympic Standard and #1 Ranking……

Jessica Smith traveled to Palo Alto, California last Sunday to take part in the Stanford Invitational.   It was a good day for running that featured very warm temperatures and good fields of runners.  Smith placed second in the 800m.  Her time of 2:01.84 was under the Canadian Olympic standard and puts her in excellent position to be selected for this summer’s Brazil Olympic Games as well as gaining Smith the top ranking in Canada for her event so far this year.

Now that she has achieved the all-important standard, if Smith places amongst the first three in the 800m at the Canadian Championships, she should secure herself a place on our country’s Olympic team.

Lindsey Butterworth and Helen Crofts also took part in the 800m at the Stanford meet with both VR athletes producing notable performances. Butterworth ran her all time best clocking of 2:04.00 to place fifth and Crofts put forth her best effort of the season in coming eighth (2:05.06). The weekend’s results at Stanford places Smith first in the current Canadian rankings for the 800m with Butterworth in fifth spot and Crofts in eighth.

Django Lovett holds second place in the Canadian rankings for the men’s high jump.  Last Saturday Canadian record holder Derek Drouin jumped 2.24 meters in Des Moines, Iowa  but Lovett’s jump of 2.23m achieved earlier in the season places him second in the Canadian rankings.

In the junior men’s Canadian rankings, Joel Della Siega, of Ocean Athletics, who is a Valley Royal training member, is tied for first in the rankings (2.05m) with Michael Lambert in third position with a height of 1.95m.

This coming Wednesday and Thursday a large number of club athletes will represent their various schools at the Upper Fraser Valley Championships that take place at the Swan Track in Abbotsford.   This meet is the first step in qualifying for the Provincial High School Track and Field Championships in Nanaimo during the first week in June.