International School Bangkok hosts the IASAS Track & Field Championships April 18-20.  Check out results as they happen as well as the live stream at:  http://inside.isb.ac.th/athletics/

For up to date results go here.

Story by Melissa Huston, Nihal Krishan, Ann Lee, Stanton Yuwono

Track and Field IASAS day two kicked off with three quick paced 110 meter hurdles by the boys.

The preliminary rounds saw a few athletes fall but finish strong. In the second heat, SAS Eagle’s Todd Shel knocked down the last hurdle before gaining back his momentum to finish in first while JIS Dragon’s James Eve fell close to the finish line, missing out on his opportunity to make the finals.

TAS Tiger Liam Wilson finished second in the over all times for all three heats with a time of 16.32 seconds just behind SAS captain Blake Peters who finished with a time of 15.79 seconds.

Qualifying for the finals are Blake Peters and Todd Shell of SAS, Tiger’s Liam Wilson, David Batchelor. Zach Greer and Yoshitaka Tamiya of ISB, ISM’s Ali Majied and Camille Dilindi of ISKL.

For the girls 100 meter heats, ISM’s Amirah Majied placed first in over all times with a time of 16.47 seconds followed closely by ISB Panther Kelsey Noah with a time of 16.91 seconds. All three SAS Eagles followed up in fourth, fifth and sixth placed times overall. Megan Crabtree and Victoria Baldos of JIS and ISB also qualified for the finals that will take place on Saturday at 9:30am.

Meanwhile, the competition level rose another level as the IASAS rookie and SAS Junior Alex Amstrup rose to the challenge in the boys long jump finals. Coming into the final three jumps, Amstrup was in second place with the best jump distance continuing to switch between TAS Athletes Abe Ho and Liam Wilson. Amstrup secured first place with a personal best of 6 meters and 24 centimeters.

“I came here not knowing what to expect because it’s my first IASAS, I thought that I would be amongst the bottom few. It’s really humbling to be a first-timer and to perform at my best,” Amstrup said just after winning the event.

TAs Senior Liam Wilson finished the event with  a cool fourth place finish with a distance of 6 meters and 5 centimeters while fellow TAS senior Abe Ho took silver with a distance of 6 meters and 16 centimeters.

“Me and Abe have always been close in our distanced and we’re always competing against each other,” Wilson said when asked about his competitiveness with his teammate, “It’s this competition that propels us to perform better than the other.

Senior SAS captain Max Shaulis won bronze. After leaving the Long Jump even to compete in another event, Shaulis was the last jumper to compete in the finals. His strong place finish gave him a final distanced jump of 6 meters and 15 centimeters just one centimeter off of second place.

For the girl’s discus throw, Megan Polis, Rosie Fisher and Julia Fie’eiki from JIS and Becky Kreutter, Emma Graddy from SAS and Christine O’Keefe from ISM went onto the finals after a long qualifying match. Eagle Emma Graddy came in first in the finals with a 30.83m. Julia Fie’eiki came in second with a 28.05m and Rosie Fisher third with 26.02m.

There was a slight confusion of the final standings during the awards ceremony, resulting in awarding a medal to an athlete who did not place- but after a few moments it was corrected and the finalists were awarded their hard earned medals.

Before the closing of the AM session, the last two events saw SAS and ISM secure big wins in both the girls and boys 200 meter finals.

For the boys, SAS swept the board winning all three medals for first, second and third. Captain Max Shaulis finished first with 22.86 seconds followed closely by Kevin Holt with a time of 23.20 seconds and senior Blake Peters just 0.22 seconds behind. The Eagles racked up a total of 17 points that will go towards the overall point score totals. ISB’s Taylor Bonneau placed fourth followed by ISKL Panther Takeshi Nagagawa and JIS Dragon Andreas Krohn.

The girls 200 also featured all three Eagles who qualified from the prelims. After a tight start, ISM Bearcat’s Smriti Sridhar – an anticipated forefront sprinter – pulled ahead of the rest of the pack to cross the finish line first with a time of 26.61. ISKL’s Sabrinne Gibson took second with a time of 27.13 seconds and SAS Eagle Isabella Shaulis placed third with 27.57 seconds. SAS girls Liz Conklin and Isabella Mulder and TAS runner Eunice Lin also secured points for their respective schools. The girls were warmly congratulated by several of the ISM athletes after their race with a man made tunnel that they all were encouraged to run through.

By Caroline Hui

High jump is the definition of the term “raising the bar.”

The bar is raised incrementally and the event ends when the athlete cannot jump any higher. On Thursday, the girls’ high jump lasted for two-and-a-half hours and saw ISB sophomore Halle Jourdan place first, jumping a height of 1.46 meters. JIS freshman Katie Osterlund came in second, and TAS sophomore Alex Jones and ISM senior Caitlin Spenc e tied for third.

Jourdan said that Thursday’s high jump competition was the longest she’s ever waited for the event to end. The wait was worth it.

“I feel amazing,” said Jourdan, a first-time jumper at IASAS, of her victory.

The Game:

The bar starts at 1.15 meters and is raised in increments of five centimeters until it reaches a height of 1.35 meters. After that, it is raised in increments of three centimeters. For each new level, the jumper has three tries to clear the bar.

If the jumper hits the bar and it stays in place, it is considered a clear. If the jumper hits the bar and it falls off, it is a strike. After three strikes, the jumper is out of the competition. If the jumper’s foot hits the mat before jumping, it’s a scratch.

High jumpers agree that the hardest part of the game is blocking out outside noise.

“When the guy is talking on the microphone, it’s really annoying,” SAS junior Seira Wade said. “It’s so distracting when someone is running around you and there’s cheering. Then, you usually don’t go. That’s why for this event, there’s no time limit.”

Wade said that these distractions make dealing with her nerves difficult.

For Jourdan, approaching the bar is the hardest part of the game because of the noise.

“You have to block out everything and everybody around you,” Jourdan said. “You can’t worry about the person before you, so it takes a lot of focus to start.”

She’ll Be Back:

Jourdan began jumping in P.E. class in middle school. When she found out that she did well, she continued jumping.

“Then it became something I really loved to do,” she said.

Jourdan credits her first place finish to good advice from her coaches.

“I took their advice to heart,” she said. “I actually tried to listen to them and do what they told me to do.”

Jourdan said that she will most likely move to JIS next year. She hopes to jump again at IASAS 2011.

By Nihal Krishan

The top four winners of the boys triple jump were decided even before the athletes had their final three runs. TAS senior Abraham Ho out-jumped his competition with a TAS record of 13 meters and 25 centimeters.

Ho had broken the TAS record last year as well, only to be topped by teammate Liam Wilson one centimeter later in the tournament.

“I was hoping I could break it again this year,” Ho said just after he broke the record.

SAS junior Alex Amstrup placed second with 12 meters and 90 centimeters.

“Depending on my practice runs and my scratches, I do little jumps to lengthen or shorten my distance to the mark,” he said.

Triple jump, an event which requires athletes to take three jumps before they leap into the pit was full of interruptions today. TAS junior Liam Wilson, who placed 5th with a distance of 12 meters and 58 centimeters and ISKL sophomore Connor Neudorf had to leave the triple jump event midway in order to compete in other events for track. The whole event took over 2 hours because of these interruptions. ISM senior Ali Majied came 3rd with a distance of 12 meters and 77 centimeters; SAS senior Blake Peters came in fourth place with 12 meters and 63 centimeters; and ISKL junior Camille Dilindi came 6th with 12 meters and 30 centimeters.

For full stories and updates, go to:

http://eye.sasclubs.com/

For live results, streaming, and the schedule, go to:

http://cms.sas.edu.sg/trackandfield

Singapore American School hosts the 2010 IASAS Track & Field Championships on April 8-10.  Get a birds-eye view of the action from their full field Live Stream and keep up with the results as they come in at their website:  http://cms.sas.edu.sg/trackandfield.

The final season of the IASAS year is here!