Bow Valley High School Bobcats’ Cole Lethebe won gold in the intermediate boy’s triple-jump event at the Alberta Schools Athletic Association provincial track meet June 8 at Foothills Athletic Park in Calgary.
The Grade 11 student athlete’s personal-best, 13.46-metre triple jump earned him the provincial intermediate title. He also won provincial silver in intermediate boy’s long jump, with a 6.46-metre leap.
Bobcats track co-coach Rob Makkreel said Lethebe’s triple-jump win was never in doubt. He was well clear of the competition from the get-go, winning by half a metre. But the long jump was another story.
“The long jump was back and forth,” Makkreel recalled of Lethebe’s duel with Archbishop’s Jordy Ntambwe, who finished second to Lethebe in the triple jump. “The other athlete on the second-last jump gets two centimetres ahead of Cole. And then Cole beats him by a centimetre. Then the kid on his last jump beats Cole by three centimetres.
“It was really exciting.”
Lethebe, also a volleyball and basketball player for the Bobcats’ senior boy’s teams, was named the school’s senior male athlete of the year at the school’s June 7 awards night. And he still has another year to go.
“He jumps out of his shoes,” Makkreel, who said Lethebe can jump off either foot, cracked. “He trains like crazy. He’s got the mad hops, for sure.”
Lethebe is aiming for a track scholarship at a U.S. university once he graduates from Bow Valley High School.
Multi-sport athlete Skylar Iredale was named the school’s senior female athlete of the year. The basketball, soccer, volleyball and track athlete was unable to compete at track provincials because of a knee injury. The 2013 BVHS grad is headed to Calgary’s Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in the fall to play basketball for the Trojans women’s team.
Marta Sadornil Ruiz was named the school’s junior-varsity female athlete of the year and Scott Haigh the junior-varsity male athlete of the year.
