For the third straight year, Georgia Ellenwood has captured gold in the heptathlon at the B.C. high school track and field championships.
Ellenwood was competing on Friday and Saturday at Abbotsford’s Rotary Stadium, which hosted the combined events portion of the B.C. high school track and field championships.
The remainder of the provincial championships are set for June 1-2 at Burnaby’s Swangard Stadium.
Ellenwood, a Grade 11 student at Langley Secondary, scored 4,955 points, nearly 700 points ahead of the second-place finisher, Kelowna’s Keely Watts-Watling.
She becomes the third three-time winner of the event, joining D.W. Poppy’s Kelly Ann Kempf (1985, 1986 and 1988) and G.P. Vanier’s Katie Gallagher (2004, 2005 and 2006).
“It is an honour to be compared to them,” Ellenwood said.
While she knows of both athletes and their careers, she has never met them.
“I really look up to them and how they handle everything,” Ellenwood added.
Ellenwood, who also trains locally with the Langley Mustangs Track and Field Club, as well as part of Canada’s Olympic development program, admitted she wasn’t at her best over the weekend.
“I was a little bit tired and not fully recovered,” she said, referencing the week before, where she won gold in the heptathlon at a collegiate meet held at Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash.
At that meet, against college and university athletes, Ellenwood scored 5,198 points, which not only set a new track record, but also helped her achieve the necessary qualifying score to represent Canada at the world junior (19 and under) track and field championships in Barcelona this July.
Last summer, Ellenwood placed 12th at the world youth championships for Canada in France, setting a new Canadian youth (16/17) record with 4,952 points.
Over the weekend in Abbotsford, a foot injury hampered Ellenwood in the long jump and the high jump.
She still did well enough to place first and second, respectively, in those events, taking first in the long jump at 5.30m and second in the high jump at 1.62m. She was also first in the 100m (14.92), 200m (25.62), 800m (2:26.14), shot put (9.74m) and in the javelin (37.30m).
Ellenwood plans on resting her foot all week in advance of the B.C. provincial track and field championships this Friday and Saturday at Burnaby’s Swangard Stadium.
At last year’s championships, Ellenwood was named the most outstanding female performer for her four-gold medal performance.
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Two other Langley athletes — Walnut Grove’s Shelby Smithson and Danica Matson— placed fourth and fifth, respectively, in the heptathlon event.
Smithson won the high jump portion of the event, clearing 1.65m.
Rounding out the top 10 were Langley Fundamental’s Hannah Beaton (seventh) and Walnut Grove’s Emma Smithson (ninth).