Fresh off a third-place finish at the provincial championships, Elphi's Brianna Kane is setting her sights on national and international competition.
Brianna picked up the bronze medal, finishing third in the women's 400 m final at the 2005 provincial high school track and field finals at Swangard Stadium in Burnaby last weekend. She finished with a time of 56.86, just behind Grade 11 sprinter Whitney Wellington of Fleetwood Park and Corri Fell, a Grade 12 sprinter from Point Grey.
Brianna is in Grade 10 at Elphi and is only 16 years old.
"I was pretty happy with the result. I knocked off over one second on my personal best time," Brianna said.
When asked if she is intimidated going up against older athletes, Brianna said it doesn't bother her.
"Not so much anymore. I've been competing since I was in Grade 8, so it doesn't bother me," she said.
Now that the high school season is in the books, Brianna is trying to qualify for the national team for a world championship meet set for Morocco in July.
"The national program sets the standard, and Brianna has to be among the top two times in Canada," said Elphi coach Tom Daniels. "She's really close, like three-tenths off the standard. Right now there are four or five girls in Canada who are really close."
Brianna has two more chances to set her time. She's off to a meet in Coquitlam this weekend and another one in Langley on July 18.
"For her to achieve this would be the ultimate," added Daniels.
Brianna is also working towards juvenile and junior provincial teams. Trials for those squads take place in late June, early July.
Brianna was just one of the stories for Elphi at this year's provincials.
Katrina Jones finished 25th in the 3,000 m, the women's 4 by 100 m relay team finished eighth, the men's 4 by 100 m relay team finished 24th in preliminaries and failed to qualify for the finals while Rachel Van Wersch finished 27th in the women's 100 m preliminaries.
Brianna was back at it again in the 200 m, as she finished eighth in the pre-lims, just failing to qualify for the finals. Teammate Kyla Richey finished 15th.
The women's 4 by 400 relay team finished 10th in the pre-lims, while the men's relay team finished 16th in pre-lims. The men's team, however, moved up eight places from their qualifying time.
In the hammer throw, Tyrell Dempster was 14th and finished 23rd in the discus. Sam Lyons was 17th in the javelin. Rachel was 21st in the women's shot put. Chat's Aaron deJong was 13th in the discus, and Michael Fryer finished 17th in the 2,000 m steeplechase.
"I was very happy with how we competed," Daniels said. "A lot of them were at the provincials for the first time. They were clearly nervous, but they performed well. We're a young team, mainly grade 8s and 10s. Our team looks good for the future."
