A track athlete from Airdrie demonstrated her versatility with a multi-medal performance at the 2019 provincial indoor track and field championships, held March 8 to 10 in Edmonton. Competing for the Calgary Warriors Track Club, 16-year-old Sienna MacDonald brought home gold in the U18 women’s 60-metre (m) hurdles, silver in shot put and bronze in both the long jump and 60-m sprint. “I just focused on the events I was doing and tried my best,” said the George McDougall High School Grade-11 student. MacDonald’s performances in shot put, (11.96 m) long jump (5.31 m) and the 60-m sprint (7.97 seconds) placed her in the top four ranking for U18 women in Alberta. Her 8.94-second finish in the 60-m hurdles was the highlight of her weekend, ranking her first in Alberta for U18 women, and fourth in Canada. “In hurdles, I’ve been practicing for a few months now, and [my coach] kept telling me, ‘you’re going to break nine [seconds], you’re going to break nine [seconds],’ and I just finally did,” she said. MacDonald’s success in track comes despite her taking up the sport just last year. One of her coaches with the Warriors, Jan Lips, said he convinced MacDonald to take up club track after seeing her race at a high-school meet in June 2018, when she was competing for the George McDougall Mustangs. He said he was impressed by her natural speed, which improves her performance in other track events, as well. “She’s very fast,” Lips said. “Speed relates to all the other events, so if you do long jump or shot put, the more speed you have, the better you’ll perform.” Considering MacDonald’s overall athleticism, Lips said he is pushing her to compete in heptathlon. The event includes seven different disciplines, including sprinting, hurdling, jumping and throwing. With so much to focus on, Lips said, heptathlon is incredibly demanding. “There is a lot of training time involved, because some of the events are very technical, like javelin throw, shot put and high-jump and long-jump,” he said. “You have to put in a lot of time under your belt to be able to compete at the high level.” But if there’s anyone suited to heptathlon, it’s MacDonald. A multi-sport athlete, MacDonald has also competed in soccer and basketball. She was the top scorer for the George McDougall girls’ soccer team in 2018, and also played basketball for the Calgary Red Jackets premier basketball club. She credits her athletic versatility to gymnastics, which she competed in as a young child. “That kind of helped with my overall capability in other sports,” she said. Because of the demands of track and field, however, MacDonald said she will have to give up basketball and soccer so she can compete and train solely in her new sport during her senior year of high school. Now that the indoor track season has come to a close, MacDonald will soon start preparing for the outdoor season. First up, she’ll compete for George McDougall in May and June, before competing for the Warriors for the summer. She said her overarching goal for the season is to compete at the 2019 National Championships, to be held in August in Sydney, N.S. “I think that’s my biggest goal, [that] and getting new [personal bests],” she said.
