Thousands of track & field athletes along with families across California came to Arcadia High School (AHS) on Feb 3. to compete in the Annual California Track & Field Winter Championship. Athletes trained weeks for this championship, as many participated in championship qualifiers back from Dec. 16, 2023 to Jan. 26, 2024. Many of the athletes in this championship were the best of the best, many of them being their school’s top athletes, which is a great accomplishment. 

Schools across California, such as Glendora High School, Cleveland High School, Oaks Christian High School, La Jolla High School, and River City High School came to attend this championship. These high schools hail from both Northern California or Southern California. 

A majority of the championship  consisted of track events, which  included the 60 meter dash, 1500 meter run, 60 meter hurdles, the 4000 meter distance medley relay (DMR), and many more. Field events consisted of weight throw, pole vault, high jump, triple jump, and shot put. Many of these events had people breaking either high-school or national records. 

The meet started at 8 a.m., with the first event being boys 60 meter hurdles preliminaries. After preliminaries, Mikaela Warr from Canyon High School beat the current 60 meter dash record for girls with a time of 7.28, lapping the current fastest record by 0.10. For boys, Demare Dezeurn from Bishop Alemany High School and Jordan Coleman from Granada Hills Charter High School beat the 60 meter dash record for boys with both getting a time of 6.72, beating the old record by 0.04. 

One prominent event that Arcadia participated in was the 4000 meter DMR, an event where a team of four athletes per school ran a total of 4000 meters. The first person to run runs a total of 1200 meters, before passing the baton onto the second person, who runs a total of 400 meters. After the second person finishes his lap, he passes it onto the third runner, who runs 800 meters, and the fourth runner runs the remaining 1600 meters. Our DMR team consisted of senior Jack Lu, juniors Sergio Alcazar and Ethan Cheng, and freshman Kai Nishiyama. Despite getting 8th place, Arcadia was able to achieve a great time of 11:08, not far from Oak Christian High School’s 10:47 time. 

When asked about his expectations during the championship DMR, Nishiyama said, “For the qualifiers, I was really nervous, but we were able to do pretty well last week, so there were high expectations of this meet. I was expecting good times, but I kind of messed up on the last part, but our team did really well overall, so that’s good.”

Field events were record-breaking too, as Deshawn Banks from Birmingham High School was able to achieve a high jump of 6’9, beating the previous record by 2”. This is a great achievement, as the old record had not been beaten since 2018. Senior Emma Samvelian who did the girls pole vault was able to get right over the pole vault line, getting Arcadia some major points within the field events. Samvelian also participated in the girls shot put, getting an impressive 33’ 11” away from where she stood. 

“The harder event for me to compete in was definitely pole vault. It was the first year I qualified to compete in the championships,” said Samvelian. 

Arcadia stood their ground against multiple different schools with top-tier athletes, and we can only hope that this championship will further boost their motivation in achieving higher and higher goals in the future. Good luck, Apaches!

Photos courtesy of Arcadia DCI intern Alaina Lee