Mike Mason is two metres, 28 centimetres away from the London Summer Games. The former University of B.C. high jumper returned to his alma mater Saturday at the Rashpal Dhillon Track and Field Oval for the UBC Open where he met the Olympic B standard.
He cleared the 2.28-metre mark and must jump the same distance or clear the higher mark of 2.31 m to meet the A standard and place in the top three at the national track and field trials in Calgary at the end of June.
Im feeling really, really good, Mason told UBC Athletics after his winning jump. This is just my second meet competing outdoors this year. The last one was last weekend in some pretty poor conditions so Im quite excited that, just second meet out, I am able to get a B standard. Im using a new run-up approach that I havent had in previous years and it seems to really be working. Its been a really big change for me.
Vancouver race walker and former T-Bird Inaki Gomez won the 5,000-metre mens race in 20 minutes, 31.29 seconds. He beat his friend and training partner Evan Dunfee, who took silver with a time of 20:54.39.
Gomez has already punched his ticket to the 2012 Olympics. He met the 20-km race walk A standard of 1:22.30 at a September meet in Germany, where he finished third with a time of 1:22:06. At the same event, Dunfee registered a B standard and finished fifth in 1:23.45.
Lord Byng graduate and freshman T-Bird Devan Wiebe beat the pack in the womens 400 metres. She edged her closest competitor from Simon Fraser University by 25 seconds to crack the one-minute mark and win in 59.64. Wiebe has set her sights on the 2016 Games. The Olympic B standard for the womens 400 m is 52.35. The A standard is 51.55.
