Nina Schultz gave the defending B.C. high school girls’ track and field champions a step up on the competition.
The Grade 11 New Westminster Secondary student won her second consecutive combined-events title at the provincial high school championships at the Apple Bowl in Abbotsford last weekend.
Schultz garnered more than 5,000 points in the seven-event girls’ heptathlon, becoming just the fourth high school female to reach the milestone mark since the competition was first run in 1982.
Last year’s most outstanding female athlete scored a career-best 5,046 total points, winning the 100-metre hurdles in a personal-best time of 14.82 seconds, the high jump in 1.74 metres, the 200m in a personal-best time of 26.35, the long jump in 5.38m and the javelin, with a PB throw of 36.37m. She also posted PBs in the 800m, with a career-best time of 2:29.61, and the shot put, with a heave of 10.30m.
Robin Buckingham of Walnut Grove placed second in the heptathlon with 4,469 points. Calli-Ann Abbott of Brooks Secondary in Powell River was third with a 4,381 total.
Four-time B.C. high school champion Georgia Ellenwood holds the girls’ provincial record in the heptathlon with 5,296 points set in 2013, when she beat D.W. Poppy’s Kelly-Ann Kempf’s long-standing 1985 record of 5,262.
The only other female athlete to reach the 5,000 mark in the heptathlon was Burnaby Central’s Allison Eades, who did it twice in 1982 and ’83, tallying 5,081 points in her first try and 5,156 in her second attempt.
Schultz’s score is the fifth-best all-time total in the 33-year history of the girls’ event.
The New Westminster teen will compete in three individual events, including the high jump and long and triple jumps, at the upcoming B.C. high school championships to be held in Langley from June 4 to 6.
