A Holy Trinity Academy Knight has a golden photo for her Grade 12 graduation this year.
Emma Bibault won the gold medal in the Senior girls 1,500m at the Alberta high school track and field championships when she beat Rundle College’s Jenna Westaway in a photo finish June 2 at Foote Field in Edmonton.
“It turned into a sprinting match at the end,” said Bibault. “I leaned at the very end and I won by 3/100ths of a second.”
Bibault was clocked at 4:45.92 while Westaway came in 4:45.95.
Bibault and Westaway cut away from the field after the first lap, with the Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) runner tucked in behind her counterpart from Rundle. She had to kick things into gear at the end.
“On the last lap (400m remaining) I passed her but then she passed me with about 300m to go,” Bibault said. “She gained a lot of metres on me and I thought she had too much ground on me when I started kicking, I really pushed it.”
Bibault caught Westaway in the final 75m, but it took a lean and a photo to show the HTA runner had won the gold.
“I leaned at the tape and I had no idea who had won the race,” she said.
Westaway has been Bibault’s Moby Dick over the past three years.
“Every year that I have raced she always beat me,” Bibault said. “The closest I have ever been to her is about four seconds. I am finally able to keep up with her — so I am really happy about it.”
Westaway thought she had a good chance at gold when she passed Bibault with 300m to go.
“I tried to make the race over, but Emma just hung in there,” Westaway said. “I might have kicked too early and I wasn’t able to hold it.”
She admitted to being disappointed with the result.
“Let’s be honest, you want to win, you don’t want to settle for anything less,” Westaway said. “If I am going to lose, I’m glad it was to someone like Emma. She’s a good runner, and it’s always good competition.”
Bibault also picked up a silver medal in the 800m on Friday. She was beaten by 4.5 seconds by Westaway.
Westaway won the gold in the 800m as a Junior and Intermediate the two previous years.
“I took the lead right away and I didn’t look back,” Westaway said. “I knew Emma was in the race, but I didn’t worry about it — I just ran my own race.”
HTA’s Michael Quick didn’t have to lean to win his gold medal. He won the Intermediate boys 1,500m in 4:03.17 a second-and-a-half quicker than Mitchell Basher of Strathcona Comp in Edmonton.
“It was one of the best technical runs I have ever run,” Quick said. “I tucked behind Will Madsen and Mitch Basher at the start and then I kicked at the 700m mark.”
Quick, a Grade 11 student, said he wanted to start his kick early, rather than picking up his speed with 400m left.
“They are both faster sprinters than me,” Quick said. “I wanted to kick early and challenge them to stay with me — I wanted to take their kick away from them.”
Quick won the 1,500m Junior boys provincial title last season.
He learned the hard way how quick of a kick Basher has in the 800m on June 1. Quick won the bronze medal in the 800m, finishing three seconds behind the first-place Basher.
“It wasn’t a great run for me,” Quick said. “The first 400m was slow. We ran around 59 seconds, I was expecting 56. Then with about 300m left, they just pulled away from me.”
Quick said if the first 400m had been faster, he might have been able to tire out the two runners who finished ahead of him.
Hurdling Falcon
Somebody forgot to tell a Foothills Composite Grade 10 student guys who play linebacker and wrestle aren’t supposed to win sprinting events.
Cody Thompson picked up the bronze medal in the Junior boys 100m hurdles June 1 in Edmonton with a time of 14.51.
“It is a bit unusual, but hurdles is something I like to do so I kept with it,” Thompson said.
Thompson was seeded sixth out of the eight finalists going into the race.
“I had a good start and my coach (Carolyn Lenstra) told me to concentrate on sprinting between the hurdles — she told me it was a sprinting race not a jumping race,” Thompson said. “So I concentrated on that.”
He was pleasantly surprised with his result.
“I wasn’t really expecting to win a medal,” he said. “I was just hoping to finish in the top five.”
Foothills Falcon Alex Ivan won the bronze medal in the Senior boys 400m.
In the team results HTA finished third among the 46 3A schools (400 to 799 students) competing. The Foothills Falcons were 17th among the 46 4A schools (more than 800 students).
