STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.

Nine medals for Nanaimo Track and Field Club at BC Jamboree

Jul 19, 2017 | 11:40 AM

COQUITLAM — The Nanaimo Track and Field Club took home nine medals from the BC Athletics Jamboree over the weekend.
 
The only gold medal came in hammer throw with 15-year-old Ethan Katzberg posting a distance of 56.38 metres.  His older sister Jessica won a silver in the hammer throw with a toss of 51.16m.
 
Tyler Heisterman is the local club president and says the two throwers have been fortunate to have great coaching from their father Bernie.
 
“They’re strong kids and they’re fairly tall. They’re great athletes and they play other sports like basketball. Bernie is very good at what he does and he’s able to teach them well. It’s a very technical event,” said Heisterman.
 
In the decathlon Ben Toth and Steen Rasmussen took silver and bronze to give Nanaimo two of the three podium spots.
 
Olivia Lundman and Madison Paugh showed off their versatility by capturing medals in two seperate events.
 
Lundman not only won silver in the 1500m race walk and bronze in pole vault, she finished fourth in the 1500m steeple chase and fifth in hammer throw.
 
Paugh had two bronze medals, one in triple jump and the other in pentathlon.
 
Marina Anderson earned bronze in the 5000m race walk to round out the medal contingent.

Heisterman says the results are outstanding for the athletes and they also speak to the high quality of the entire club.

“We’ve got the next generation of up and coming athletes performing well at the provincial level,” Heisterman says. “We had some 14-year-olds and 15-year-olds, they’re doing really well and they’re our next summer games athletes – which will be in Duncan next summer.”

There were two other medals at the Jamboree for Nanaimo athletes now competing for Canadian universities.