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Gold, meet record for Champoux

Aldergrove teen sets meet record for fastest time in 400m hurdles at Legion track and field championships
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Aldergrove’s Megan Champoux not only won the gold medal at the Royal Canadian Legion track and field championships last week in Quebec

Gold was the goal, but a meet record? That was an unexpected bonus.

But that is exactly what Megan Champoux was able to accomplish, competing at the Royal Canadian Legion track and field championships.

The meet was held Aug. 5 to 7 in Ste. Therese and Blainville, Que.

Champoux, a 16-year-old from Aldergrove, won the gold medal in the youth girls 400m hurdles race, clocking in at 1:00.33, just fractions ahead of the previous meet record (1:00.33).

Despite the blazing time, that was not even a personal best as it ranked third among her all-time bests for the event.

“It feels great to win. That was the goal going in,” Champoux admitted.

“But the meet record? I was not expecting that, but it is definitely a nice bonus.”

Champoux entered the race seeded second after the preliminaries but she really wanted to beat the top-ranked hurdler in the race.

“I was really nervous going in because the girl ranked No. 1 is a good friend of mine and she is a really tough competitor so I knew she wasn’t going to go down that easy,” Champoux said about fellow Team BC runner Lizzie Gummer of Comox.

Gummer ended up taking the silver medal with a time of 1:00.90.

“I was ranked second going in and really wanted to move up and come home with the gold,” Champoux said.

Champoux and Gummer did team up to help win the bronze medal in the 4x400 relay team, along with Alexa Porpaczy and Jasneet Niijjar in a time of 3:52.01.

Champoux also made the finals in the 100m hurdles, finishing fifth.

And wrapping up her season with a pair of medals was a nice end to a tough track season.

“It hasn’t been the greatest season, I have been a bit inconsistent but obviously I am very happy with how I finished off.

“It was a good way to end,” Champoux said, explaining that her times to start the year were a bit slower than she wanted.

“I was a little bit inconsistent with my winter training.

“It took a few races and some time until I got back in the groove.”

Champoux, who enters Grade 12 next month, expects to begin her training in the coming weeks for the upcoming cross-country season. And she has her sights set on representing Canada next summer for the junior Pan Am Games.

She previously represented Canada last summer in Colombia at the world youth track and field championships.

“That is the goal for 2017, to make Team Canada.”

Mustangs win three gold, two silver and two bronze medals

Champoux was one of three members of the Langley Mustangs Track and Field Club who won gold medals at the Royal Canadian Legion track and field championships.

Also taking gold were Natalia Monro in the midget girls long jump and Rori Denness in the midget girls javelin.

Two other Mustangs also found the podium at the Quebec meet with Ian Vandergugten winning silver in the midget boys 100m hurdles with a time of 14.23 and bronze in the 4x100 relay while Eniko Sara won silver in the midget girls high jump, as well as placing seventh in the javelin.

And Langley’s Ethan Foster (BC Flyers) was also on Team BC for the meet.

Foster finished fifth in the youth decathlon with 5,318 points, 306 points behind the gold and 186 behind the bronze.

Foster did win the pole vault, while finishing second in the 1500m and third in the long jump. The decathlon also features the shot put (fifth), 400m (sixth), high jump (seventh), javelin (eighth), discus (eighth), 110m hurdles (ninth) and 100m (tenth).