Twenty five years ago “The Sign” by Ace of Base topped the music charts, “Forest Gump” made it’s debut in theatres and the world was enamored with Netscape Navigator as a way to get around the early days of the internet. It was also when Leslie Estwick set a club record in the women’s long jump with a leap of 6.27 metres at a competition in Prince George, BC.
Flash forward to 2019 and Divya Biswal, who was barely 18 months old when Estwick set the standard, added 3 centimetres to the mark with her 6.30 metre leap to finish second at the Bryan Clay Invite in Azusa, California. It was a breakthrough performance for the 26 year old Biswal as all four of her measured jumps were in excess of her previous best of 6.01 metres.
“Records are made to be broken,” said Estwick when asked about Biswal’s performance. With a smile on her face, she also quipped, “Just give me credit for having held [the record] for 25 years.”
Not finished with her record breaking ways, Biswal returned to the runway an hour later to contest her specialty – the triple jump. Despite feeling the affects of competing for nearly four hours in the California sun, the St. Lawrence University grad bounded her way out to a new lifetime best and club record of 13.31 metres on her third attempt. Unfortunately, she would pass her final three attempts due to cramping.
Despite the long record setting day, Biswal came right back the next day the Beach Invite in Long Beach to set yet another record, again in the triple. She wasted no time, adding a further seven centimetres to her record as she broke the sand at 13.38 metres on her first attempt. Just like that, victory belonged to Biswal as she won by more than a foot over Ja’la Henderson of the University of Wyoming.
Also in Long Beach, shotputter Tim Nedow set a new outdoor lifetime best en route to finishing third. The two-time Commonwealth Games medalist heaved the 16 pound ball out to 21.18 metres to add 16 centimetres to his previous outdoor best set last summer. While an outdoor best, Nedow’s mark was still short of his club record 21.33 metres set in 2016 at an indoor competition in Stockholm.
In his debut performance at 10,000 metres, Farah Abdulkarim set the track on fire with a scorching performance of 28 minutes 39.66 seconds to finish fifth at the Mt. Sac Relays and move to the top of the Canadian rankings. The performance puts third on the club’s all-time rankings and also surpasses the standards for this summer’s World University and Pan American Games.
Also occupying a spot atop the Canadian rankings is Stephen Evans. The USports champion over 600m carried his speed outdoors as he posted a new lifetime best of 1:48.90 at the Bryan Clay Invite to move to eighth in Club history. Evans promptly followed it up the next day in Long Beach with a time of 1:49.58.
Also posting all-time ten performances this past weekend were Colorado State freshman Lauren Gale and Washington sophomore Shona McCulloch. Also running in Long Beach, Gale placed second over 400m with a time of 53.60 seconds to move to number four all-time. Up the coast in Palo Alto, McCulloch dropped 18 seconds from her previous best in the 3000 metre steeplechase as she shot up to third on the club rankings.
