Sports LangleyAdvance
Track and field
Thursday, August 15, 2013
A27
Alexander’s great jump nets national title Langley is home to a Canadian midget-aged long jump champion.
Alexander Savage shows the gold medal he won in long jump at the 2013 Legion Canadian youth track and field championships, held last weekend at McLeod Athletic Park.
by Troy Landreville
tlandreville@langleyadvance.com
As the kids today might say: this dude’s got some serious hops. Willoughby resident Alexander Savage, all 5’7’ of him, flew to a gold medal in the midget boys long jump event during last weekend’s 2013 Legion Canadian youth track and field championships at McLeod Athletic Park. Using the two natural springs he has for legs, the 15-year-old Walnut Grove Secondary School student is now officially the top U16 boys long jumper in Canada. His winning effort: a devilishly good six metres, 66 inches. “You couldn’t make that up,” his dad “Memphis” Mike Savage said. His jump outdistanced silver medalist Ivan Nyemeck from Quebec (6.57m) and bronze medal winner Thomas Walser from Manitoba (5.99m). “I feel I performed pretty good,” the younger Savage said. “I was just going in there to do my best.” Alexander credits his dad for helping him attain national champion status. Mike used to exercise his son’s legs when Alexander was an infant. That early childhood training paid off. “It sort of helped,” Alexander said. “I guess it made a big difference, since I won.”
Troy Landreville/Langley Advance
Alexander qualified for nationals as an unattached athlete, meaning his parents had to pay for his entry into a prestigious track meet that attracted 1,000 athletes from across Canada and ran Friday to Sunday (Aug. 9-11) at MAP. “It was worth every penny,” his extremely proud dad said. The BC/Yukon branch of the Royal Canadian Legion provides funding support to athletes who qualify for the
national Legion meet, Mike noted. Alexander thought he secured a spot for Team BC from the national qualifying meet in Kamloops in July, but was disappointed to see he lost the spot due to a technicality. “I won first to qualify but they counted my jump as illegal, yet still all my secondary jumps were… better than the guy who took my spot for the Legion team,” he said.
A basketball player and skateboarder, Alexander has turned out to be a quick study in track and field. He only took up long jump in a serious fashion two-and-a-half months ago, but he’s always been a skilled jumper. His vertical leap is more than four feet. “I’ve always been good at jumping,” he said. “Everybody has compliments about how high I jump.” Next summer, Alexander is looking to defend his long jump title at MAP, which once again hosts the Legion national meet in 2014. Alexander says he’s taking long jump “a lot more seriously” now, than ever before. He trains with Surrey’s South Fraser Track and Field Club under the guidance of head coach Robert Esmie, who won Olympic gold for Canada in the 4 x 100m relay at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. He also improved his jumping ability with a lot of help from Rusty Pierce, head coach of Flip City Gymnastics in Walnut Grove. While Alexander is not a gymnast, Pierce was more than happy to help the youngster sharpen his technique by using a springboard as a tool, two-tothree hours each week for the past three weeks. “Rusty was very important. He deserves accolades,” Mike said. “He helped us work on straightening his [Alexander’s] alignment when he jumped in the air. He [Pierce] said a kid trying to win a nationals is worth gold.”
Baseball
Dodgers hosting Western Canada championships The host team has something to prove at the Western Canada bantam AAA baseball championships, being held at Aldergrove Athletic Park this weekend.
With brother Yi Fan looking on, Yi An Pan fielded a ground ball during a Langley/ Aldergrove Dodgers practice last week at Aldergrove Athletic Park. The Dodgers are hosting the Western Canada bantam AAA baseball championships this weekend at the park.
by Troy Landreville
tlandreville@langleyadvance.com
The Langley/Aldergrove Dodgers are a ball team with a championship pedigree that hasn’t quite lived up to expectations from the start of their season. The local all-stars hope to change that this weekend when they host the Western Canada bantam AAA baseball champion-
Troy Landreville/Langley Advance
ships on the beautifully manicured grounds of Aldergrove Athletic Park. The Dodgers’ roster is filled with players who have garnered significant titles in the not-toodistant past. Seven of the team’s 12 members were part of the Langley Baseball 11/12 squad that won the B.C. and Canadian Little League titles in 2011 and went on to represent the nation at the famed Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. These same players also took part in the historic Pearl of Africa fund-and-awareness event in Uganda. They include Cole Cantelon, Yi An Pan, Yi Fan Pan, Ian Burns, Riley Ens, Nick Atkinson, and Ken Dubois. They are joined by their Dodgers teammates Jake
Polancic, Jarrod Manick, Jaron Jeske, Owen Napieralski, and Laith Sweiss. The team’s general manager is Dean Cantelon, who managed that Canadian champion squad. With the kind of potential firepower the Dodgers possess, they haven’t been able to reach their potential this season. At least not yet. The Dodgers qualified for the Western Canada tournament as the host team. Most recently, they placed fifth out of 10 teams at a very tough B.C. provincial tournament in Kamloops. “The provincials is the hardest tournament to win,” Dodgers head coach Darren Rock said. This weekend’s event includes eight teams from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
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