After a running career spent climbing to the top of the mountain, Lindsey Butterworth, Simon Fraser's former NCAA champion 800m runner, today sits on the precipice of qualifying for this summer's Tokyo Olympic Games. (Photo by KK Law property of Grand Uproar Marketing Company 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Track and Field

A Saturday Salute: In a time of tumult, quiet miles and a quiet mind keep Simon Fraser grad Lindsey Butterworth focused on her bid for Tokyo Olympics!

BURNABY — Lindsey Butterworth has always been good at putting in the quiet miles.Now, as she navigates the unpredictable homestretch of her bid to qualify for the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics, the North Vancouver native knows it’s just as important to maintain a quiet mind.“If you look at the big picture… start to look at […]

UBC Thunderbirds track and field coach Laurier Primeau. (Photo by Jeff Sargeant property of UBC athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Track & Field University Track and Field

Varsity Letters podcast 06.04.20 edition: UBC Thunderbirds track and field coach Laurier Primeau on the power of sport to effect positive change

Welcome to the Varsity Letters podcast for Thursday, June 4.  Today we welcome UBC Thunderbirds head track and field coach Laurier Primeau back to the podcast to chat about the state of the sport and the loss of the spring season following his program’s dual win at the 2019 NAIA national championships. Laurier also reflects […]

Today, Varsity Letters celebrates the B.C. senior girls cross-country champion Sentinel Spartans, plus the recently-completed 2018-19 season's 72 other B.C. high school senior varsity team champions! (Photo property of Sentinel athletics 2019. All rights reserved)
Feature High School

A Sunday Photo Album: We celebrate all 73 B.C. high school senior varsity team champions from 2018-19

LANGLEY — Welcome to a Varsity Letters first! As part of our season-ending tribute to the student-athletes and coaches who make the B.C. high school sports world such a special fraternity, we started out with a simple idea: Publishing the photographs of every senior varsity team to win a B.C. high school championship over the course […]

Queen Elizabeth's Jasneet Nijjar (centre) won the 100m hurdles last month at the B.C. high school championships, part of a back-to-back haul of triple gold medal-winning performances. (Photo property of Wilson Wong 2019. All rights reserved)
Born to jump, Claremont's Rebecca Dutchak has a ceiling as high as any incoming university freshman in the nation. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Track & Field University Track and Field

The Natural: Still raw and untested, Claremont’s UBC-bound Rebecca Dutchak looks ready to jump off the charts

Rebecca Dutchak always suspected she had been given the gift of jump, but it wasn’t until she took a leap of faith that she discovered her grace over gravity.

Walnut Grove's girls and boys 4x400m relay teams each won gold to close out the 2019 B.C. high school track and field championships on Saturday, giving the school its fist-ever overall team title. They are (left to right) Veronica Robertson, David Midgley, Samantha Matthewman, Cam Calbick, Holly Harrison, Richard Midgley, Prab Wichramaarachchi, Evan Wright, Jordan Jacobs. (Photo by Gary Lutes property of WGSS athletics 2019. All rights reserved)
Feature High School Track & Field

With coaching guru Ken Taylor imploring them to ‘Bring Home the Bacon,’ Langley’s Walnut Grove Gators win first-ever B.C. track & field team title

LANGLEY — Gary Lutes was getting ready to step behind the wheel of the team bus at Langley’s Walnut Grove Secondary School on Thursday morning.Ahead, for Lutes and the rest of the Gators’ traveling party of coaches and athletes, was the near-four-hour drive to Kelowna for the start later that day of the 2019 Subway […]

Simon Fraser could send as many as five steeplechase athletes to the NCAA Div. 2 national championships later this month. They are (left to right) Julia Howley, Chelsea Ribeiro, Olivia Willett, Aaron Ahl and Pierre Louis-Detourbe. (Photo by Brad McLeod property of SFU Athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
UBC Thunderbirds' sophomore Jamie Hennessey (55) posted the fastest NAIA time this season in the 3,000m steeplechase, despite her Type 1 diabetes. (Photo by UBC athletics copyright 2019. All rights reserved).
Feature University Track and Field

UBC’s Jamie Hennessey: Despite her Type 1 diabetes, Thunderbirds’ courageous sophomore sits among the NAIA’s steeplechase elite

VANCOUVER — If you had asked Jamie Hennessey five years ago if she was capable of having a day like the one she had last month, she would have nodded a decisive “No.”

Taryn O'Neill (right) of George Elliott, and New Westminster's Grace Fetherstonhaugh will embark on NCAA careers this fall at Villanova and Oregon State respectively. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca)
Feature High School Cross Country High School Track & Field

Varsity Letters’ B.C. Recruits List 2018: Where 69 girls and boys track & field and XC prospects are headed this coming season

LANGLEY — In terms of the mark B.C.’s graduating Class of 2018 student-athletes made, both on the trails and especially on the track this season, it’s easy to call it one of the province’s most elite in recent memory.

R.E. Mountain Eagles seniors Zach (left) and Tate Wyatt have always raced with a telekinetic bond. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of UBC athletics)
Feature High School Cross Country High School Track & Field

R.E. Mountain’s Zach & Tate Wyatt: On the tracks and trails, identical Memphis-bound twins reflect the bonds of brotherhood

Today, as we begin our stretch drive of coverage, capping another season of high school and university sports coverage here at Varsity Letters, we begin an informal series of stories which the author feels best encapsulate the spirit of B.C.s community of student-athletes.