The Coquitlam Cheetahs Track and Field Club competed at the Las Vegas Track Classic held on March 26th at Del Sol High School, Las Vegas. Hodson Harding, the reigning BC high school 400m champion led the way with a 2nd place finish in the 400m with a time of 49.15. He was followed closely by his teammate, Benjamin Ayesu-Attah the 2009 BC high school 400m champion, who finished third with 49.30 and Nathan George who was 7th with 50.10. Harding, Ayesu-Attah, George and Nick Ayin combined to run an outstanding time of 3:23.69 in the 4x400m which was only beaten by the defending California State Champions from Serra High School, Los Angeles. The Cheetah 4x400m team which holds the BC club record for Youth were 1.1 seconds away from the BC club Junior record in their first run of the season.Miranda Menzies narrowly missed the victory in the 800m as the Nevada State Champion, Anna Underwood was able to hold off her late charge. Menzies ran a personal best of 2:21.69, only 7 hundredths behind the winner.
Just outside of the medals were Esinem Ayesu-Attah who finished fourth in the 100m and Jade Vaughan who raced to a fourth place finish in the 300m hurdles event. Anthon Meyer led the way in the jumps by leaping to sixth in the triple jump and James Linde finished 25th in the long jump and also ran 6th in the 200m in a personal best time of 23.27 seconds.
In the 1500m Lawrence Viola and Erina Cho battled the wind and the altitude in Las Vegas to finish 8th in the boys and girls events respectively. Tunji Taylor Lewis competed in both the 100m where he finished 18th and in the 200m where he ran a personal best to finish 22nd. Nick Ayin having secured a medal in the 4x400 relay also raced to a 10th place finish in the 100m. Cheetah athletes will be next representing their respective schools in Fraser Valley competition.
Complete meet results can be found here.
A video of the Boys 400m can be found here. The photo taken by the Del Sol organizers to put on their website can be found here. Finally, photos taken by our club can be found here.
