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Tjernagel sets new PB in first meet of the season

The start of the indoor track season brings a lot of promise and hope. Promise that the months of training and prep work will result in a string of personal bests. Hope that those best will be accompanied by qualifying times for nationals.
Ben Tjernagel
Trinity Western University and New West native Ben Tjernagel, at right, powers his way to a new personal best in the 60-metre dash at last week's University of Washington Preview meet.

The start of the indoor track season brings a lot of promise and hope. Promise that the months of training and prep work will result in a string of personal bests.

Hope that those best will be accompanied by qualifying times for nationals.

For Trinity Western University athletes Ben Tjernagel and Jennifer Shannon, the promise came together at last week’s University of Washington Preview meet.

Tjernagel, 19, achieved a new personal best in the 60-metre dash, placing 19th with a time of 6.99 seconds. It clipped a slice off his time of 7.01 seconds, set a day earlier in the qualifying race, where he stood 12th overall.

The New Westminster native is a second-year student-athlete at Trinity Western.

Shannon, a Burnaby South alumna in her third season with the Spartans, posted a PR in her 800m event, finishing the race in 2:17.98. It put her 14th overall.

Both the program’s men's and women's track and field teams enjoyed impressive debuts for the 2019 season, as the Spartans put together a variety of strong showings including several personal records at the Seattle competition.

"Opening day was great. It was a wonderful way to open the season for a number of reasons,” remarked Trinity Western coach Shane Wiebe. “I thought we really executed a lot of the things we've been working on to this point and a lot of our athletes did well in that department. And right out of the gate, we had some great personal bests, so I'm overjoyed. The competition was great and it was a really good test for us. I think our coaches were pretty pleased all around for our first meet of the year."

Tjernagel is also slated to be on the track at the Richmond Olympic Oval in Trinity colours, competing as part of the Spartans 4x200m relay team at the Harry Jerome Indoor Games.

Trinity Western will be looking at ending the University of B.C.’s three-year hold on the Pacific World Cup, presented to the top university team at the Jerome event.

Tjernagel leads off the four-man running crew, which also includes Kenny Blackman Jr., Praise Olatoke and Kevin Hughes. The New West runner’s top 100m time is 10.78 seconds.

UBC’s foursome is expected to include another New West Secondary grad, third-year Thunderbird Bogdan Pavel.

The Jerome Indoor Games are slated for Feb. 2 in Richmond.

The Simon Fraser University track and field team also got things going in a big way, with three athletes finishing under the provisional NCAA qualifying standard.

Both junior Rowan Doherty (8:12.35, 18th overall) and senior Carlos Vargas (8:22.33) reached the provisional marks in the 3000m race with personal bests. On the women's side Sophie Dodd achieved the standard with her 2:13.86 time in the 800m, good for 11th.

The SFU women's 4x100m relay team of Nicole Lindsay, Addy Townsend, Renate Bluschke and Dodd were just shy of breaching the provisional mark with a fourth-place time of 3:53.63.

Burnaby Central alumni Nathan Mah posted strong results in both the 60m (7.04) and 200m (22.50) races.