Fourteen-year old Powell River sprinter Calli-Ann Abbott made an impressive show at Canadian Youth Legion Track and Field Championships held in Langley BC from August 9 to 11.
“She had a top 10 finish in Canada in all three events she competed in,” said Calli-Ann’s mother, Traci Abbott. She brought silver and bronze medals home with her.
Calli-Ann entered the 80-metre hurdles on Friday in the under 18 category and not only ran a personal best in a heat, but she finished second and took the silver and had another personal best.
After the 80-metre hurdles, she competed in 4x100 relay, also in the under 18 category, and came in fourth in the open clubs category
“Calli made the qualifying standards in two events but didn’t make the BC team because they only take 15 15-year-olds, so we took her as an independent,” said Traci.
Calli-Ann competed with the Comox Valley Cougars track club because that’s her second club declaration.
“She gets coached by one of the coaches over there, which allowed her to do the relays as well,” said Traci.
The second day of the competition she ran the 200-metre hurdles and scored a personal best in a heat and beat her heat time in the final race.
Going in she ranked number eight with a seed time of 28.58. In her heat she ran 28.47 and in the finals she ran 28.14. She did the same thing in the 80-metre hurdles.
“She was just ecstatic,” said Traci. “Her whole goal going into this meet was just to get personal bests. She has been training really hard to get to the level that she is competing at.”
Traci said she knew that her daughter was fast, but her times in the hurdles even surprised her.
“She had a mental block because of a crash she had last year on the second hurdle,” she explained. “She would start racing after she cleared that second hurdle.”
Traci said her daughter’s goal was simply to run clean races and not repeat her performance at Kamloops last year when she hit hurdles while racing.
“We knew she had the potential, but you never know what’s going to happen,” she said.
