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June 9, 2007

Armstrong And Abdulai Impress With Jerome Performances

Dylan Armstrong's grin said it all: "There's more where that came from."

The 26-year-old shot putter from Kamloops had a mile-wide smile at Swangard Stadium Friday night after winning the shot put at the 24th annual Vancouver Sun Harry Jerome International Track Classic with a personal best 20.72 metres. His previous best was 20.62 metres tossed in 2006.

"I've been looking for a PB for a while," said Armstrong, whose effort Friday night placed his among the world's top 10 names in men's shot put this season. "Things have been coming together for me a little bit better. My main goal this year was to get standard for Pan-Am Games and World Championships and also to stay consistently over 20 metres."

Prior to 2004 Armstrong was best known in Canada as a hammer thrower. He was a silver medallist at the 2000 world junior championships and won the national hammer throw title from 2000 to 2002. In 2006 he won the Canadian shot put title with a 19.13 effort.

"As a shot putter I'm fairly new to the event, I've been concentrating on it for about three years now -- two years under coach Anatoly Bondarchuk and he's taken me to the next level," said Armstrong. "I give 100 per cent credit to him for getting me there. But there's a lot more, I feel I have a lot more to get out there."

While Armstrong was tossing the shot farther than he ever had before Simon Fraser University standout Ruky Abdulai was next door in the high jump pit proving once again she is an athlete to watch now and in the future. Abdulai, who recently was named top female athlete at the NAIA championships in Fresno after winning the high jump, long jump and 400 metres, won the Jerome meet women's high jump with a leap of 1.83 metres.

Abdulai, 21, was born in Ghana and came to Canada to study at SFU three years ago. She is hoping to obtain her Canadian citizenship in time to compete at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. To that end she has set before her an interesting goal - to become the first athlete to compete in the long jump and 400 metres at an Olympic Games. She only recently began working on the one-lap sprint and her winning long jump of 6.70 metres at the recent NAIA championships would have been a Canadian record if she had citizenship. The current mark of 6.66 metres was set by Nicole Devonish in 1996.

"You see athletes competing in the 100 and long jump but the 400 is a much longer sprint and you don't see them pairing it with the long jump," said Abdulai. "But I would like to try that."

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