Lindsay King's jumping stride is like that of an animal you might see on an African safari.
Watching her gracefully leap the hurdles in the junior girls 80-metre event Saturday at the north central zone high school track and field championships was like watching a springbok take flight to escape the clutches of a charging lion.
The 16-year-old Grade 10 student at Prince George secondary school won the race easily in 13.06 seconds, just one-hundredth of a second off her personal best time.
"It felt pretty good," said King. "It's a lot of practice and it works good in your races if you work a lot in practice."
This is King's seventh season as a member of the Prince George Track and Field Club. As a first-year junior last year at the B.C. high school championships, King finished second in the 300m hurdles and will be looking to better that mark when she returns to the provincial meet, June 2-4 in Nanaimo.
"I'm not as fast (in the 300) but I have enough endurance to keep it up the whole way, whereas a lot of girls don't have the endurance to keep it up the whole way," said King. "I've always liked hurdles. I have long legs so I could always do it pretty good. It's more fun than just running, that's boring."
King says she can feel her knee at her chest and can see her foot as she straightens out her leading leg to clear the hurdle.
"She has beautiful long legs and arms and she's so graceful going over the hurdles - it's so effortless for her and she's an amazing runner," said PGTFC junior coach Carly Frenkel. "We just have to fix her arms."
Frenkel is trying to get King to bend her arms into her body more as she leaves the blocks to speed up her starts, but other than that, there are few flaws in her hurdles races.
On Friday, King captured gold in the junior girls 300m hurdle event, stopping the clock in 50.77 seconds, well off her personal best time of 46.57
"It's hard here (to get a PB) because there's not as much competition to push you," she said.
She also won the junior 400m in 1:05.74 (five seconds off her best time) and was the first junior girl across the line in the 200m, winning in 28.50. At provincials, she will race the 80m and 300m hurdles as well as the 400m run.
King has qualified for the Legion national meet the past two years and competed in the event in 2014, but did not go last year. The meet is on her radar again and this time she hopes to be racing in Sainte-Thrse/Blainville, Que., Aug. 5-7. She's moved up an age group at the national level, which means she will be running 400m hurdles, rather than 300m hurdles.
Dinsdale dominates at zones
Cole Dinsdale of Correlieu was in a class of his own in the senior boys distance races at the zone meet. The 18-year-old from Quesnel is in his last season of high school meets before he joins the track team at UBC in September on an engineering scholarship.
On Friday, Dinsdale knocked six seconds off his PB in the senior 1,500m race, winning in 4:12.73.
"Looking at the provincial results from last year, that sets me up good to get to finals," said Dinsdale.
On Saturday, Dinsdale also won his best event, the 2,000m steeplechase (6:19.81), and the senior 800m race.
"Last year at provincials I got ninth in steeplechase so hopefully I can go for a top five this year and with my time that's what it's looking like," he said. "Hopefully I can make the finals in the 800 or the 1,500."
The steeplechase water hazard tripped up a couple of runners but Dinsdale handled it without incident. The water pit gets shallower the further away runners are from the steeple and they can avoid the deep water if they get some horizontal distance with their leaps.
"It was just how I wanted it to go," Dinsdale said. "You just get one foot in the water and it's not too bad. It was pretty refreshing."
He's looking forward to joining the UBC cross country and track teams. He'll be following in the footsteps of his older brother Chris, also a mid-distance runner, who graduated from SFU.
"There's some great runners there at UBC already, people running with the national junior team, and I know a few of them already from running and it will be great to see them," Dinsdale said. "From what I've heard, the coaching staff is doing really well there with some of the people I've talked to."
Dinsdale, the zone champion in cross country, has been coached by Pat Marsh at Correlieu throughout most of his track career. Marsh has been away on leave from her job at the Quesnel high school while she battles stomach cancer.
"She has been a huge influence on me, always pushing us to get better and keep going, and if you're not at the track one day she's always on you about that so you want to make sure you're at practice and running on your own," he said.
Matthew Ebert of Nechako Valley dominated the senior boys throwing events, winning shot put (11.04 metres), discus (35.16m), javelin (43.10m) and hammer throw (26.62m). Sara McBride of Nechako Valley won the hammer (13.52m), shot put (7.31m) and discus (26.60), and came second to Mia Kozak of Correlieu, who won the javelin (18.28m).
Emma Floris of Nechako Valley and Lauren Matheson of College Heights were 1-2 respectively in the senior girls 100m and 200m events. Floris set the pace in the 100m with a time of 12.71 and clocked 26.24 in the 200. She also won the senior girls 400m in 59.33. Jacob Lang of North Peace won the 100m senior race in 12.32, while Lucas Dyer of Correlieu was the 200 winner in 24.39 and also won the 400m in 54.46. Ryan Gaiesky of D.P. Todd won the senior boys 400m hurdles in 1:02.03.
The two-day meet drew 125 athletes.
