Let the chase begin: Mount Doug’s Steen on fast track to success
Numerous dreams, right up to the Olympics, have been launched from the Centennial Stadium track and infield at the University of Victoria. So much so that Cassidy Steen of Colwood chose to attend cross-town Mount Douglas Secondary because of its next-door proximity to the Centennial Stadium track, where she is a member of the Victoria Speed Project under coach and Olympian Dacre Bowen.
Steen leads a new crop of dreamers, who will begin their quests today at the Lower Island high school track and field championships, the prequel to the Island high school championships next week.
Steen is coming off a massive win last month in the 60-school Oregon High School Invitational at historic Hayward Field in Eugene, where she outkicked the defending Washington state high school champion en route to winning the women’s 3,000-metre steeplechase.
Steen, bronze medallist in the B.C. high school championships steeplechase last year as a Grade 10, is now in Grade 11 but ready to be a force even against the Grade 12 seniors.
“My goal is to win at provincials this year in the 800 metres and the steeplechase [which in B.C. is contested over 1,500 metres for girls],” said Steen.
Asked about the big career goal in a perfect world, Steen replied: “The Olympics.”
You have to be good enough to dream, and Steen certainly is that.
But few school track stars would be equally at home in a Winter Games setting as is Steen, also a top-level skater who trains five days a week at the Oak Bay Figure Skating Club.
“I can land a triple axel, and that flexibility makes it easier for me during the water-jump portion of the steeplechase,” said Steen, also a member of the Mount Douglas dance team.
Not that it went too well the first time.
“I fell right in the water in my first steeplechase race,” she said, with a self-deprecating chuckle. She hasn’t stumbled since. The Lower Island high school track and field championships run today from 8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at Centennial Stadium.