Adam Sieben is king of the B.C. high school sprinters.
The Duchess Park Secondary School senior earned his place on the throne over the weekend when he won the 100 metre and 200m events at the B.C. School Sports track and field championships in Nanaimo.
Both wins were personal-best times for Sieben.
On Friday he took the 100m final in 10.71 seconds, shredding nearly a tenth of a second off his previous quick time, set in the heats. Sieben finished 18 hundredths of a second ahead of second-place Pishon Haughton of Okanagan Mission (10.90).
“I’ve been racing him for a long time,” said Sieben. “It was super-cool to come back. I’m always really confident in my races. I knew I could do it and it was just good to go out and execute.
“I got a really good start for both of them. I had an incredible start for the 100. Last year I got injured in the 100 finals and finished like seventh, it was a hamstring pull right at the end.”
The 200m race was even closer. Sieben edged Haughton by just two-hundredths of a second, stopping the clock in 21.78. That beat Sieben’s previous best of 22.35, also set in the heats.
“I came around the curve and we were neck-and-neck, and I just had to relax and coast to the line,” said Sieben. “He’s a great guy, I love competing against him.”
Before Sieben’s dual sprint win at provincials, 1999 was the most recent time an athlete from the northern half of the province won the 100 and 200 m events when Kurpreet Nijjar of Correlieu (Quesnel) did it.
Sieben was given the trophy annually awarded to the senior boys 100 m champion and will have that to keep on his mantel for the rest of the year.
Sieben has signed a scholarship commitment to the University of Regina and competes for the Cougars track team this fall. Sieben got to work with Cougars coach Sabrina Nattey last summer when she coached Canada’s national team at the U-18 North America Central America and Caribbean championships in Costa Rica. Sieben reinjured his hamstring at that event and was unable to compete.
He plans to major in psychology at Regina, one of several schools in Canada and the U.S. who tried to recruit him.
“There’s a bunch of really good young guys in our track club but nobody’s around my age, so it will be super exciting to be the younger guy on the team and have a bunch of older guys pushing me,” Sieben said.
Sieben is entered in 100 and 200 events at the Harry Jerome Classic Saturday in Vancouver. He’ll be racing a few battle-tested pros there and doesn’t expect to win.
Also on his schedule is the Bell Canadian Track and Field Championships in Montreal, June 26-30 and the BC Athletics Jamboree in Nanaimo, July 7-9. In Montreal, he’ll get to see former Duchess Park long jumper/high jumper Caleb Emon, now in his first year with Trinity Western University.
Ten Prince George Track and Field Club athletes competed in the three-day high school championships.
In other PGTFC results, Kionae Roberts, a Grade 10 student at Duchess Park, won bronze in the junior girls 400m race, posting a time of 58.22, and was fourth in the 200m (25.82).
Sarak Aka of Duchess Park advanced to two junior girls finals. She finished sixth in the 100 m (13:15) and was eighth in the 80 m hurdles (13:08).
Hana Liston of Duchess Park placed seventh in the junior girls 300m hurdles (49.87) and was also seventh in the heptathlon.
Rachael Pruden of Prince George Secondary was eighth in the junior girls heptathlon.
Nicolas Scarpino of Duchess Park ended up seventh in the Grade 8 boys long jump with a personal record of 5.18 metres.
Madelin Standish of College Heights Secondary finished fifth in the Grade 8 girls shot put with a personal-best 8.74 m toss.
