Chris Sanford will be looking to make some big strides as a first year track athlete at the University of Regina.
The recent Vanier graduate will be competing in long jump and triple jump at his first meet later this month and has been training hard. Despite battling an ankle injury from August, Sanford is recovering well and feels his chances to win are high.
“Training has been going really good,” said Chris Sanford. “My ankle is slowly getting better, but I am getting there.
“I really don’t think it is going to have an effect on how well I am going to compete this year, it is coming along pretty good and I should be fine in a couple of weeks.”
Moving up from high school to university has been a challenge for Sanford in some aspects, including training. In high school, he would train a couple nights a week, but now competing on a university level, his training has gotten stricter and harder.
“Going from training a couple times a week for high school and to training six or seven days a week for two and a half hours then lifting weights three times a week in the morning, its kind of a big difference,” explained Sanford. “It’s a lot more intense, but I think I’m making a good transition.
Sanford has always been interested in the jumps since elementary school, where he excelled and continued to improve and get better.
“I’ve always done them and excelled at those events, so I stuck with it,” said Sanford.
Despite being a first year student and athlete, Sanford has many goals and expectations for himself this track season.
“I definitely want to be at the junior world competition in Spain this year and I definitely want to be jumping over seven meters in my long jump,” he said. “That should get me to top CIS Nationals and hopefully place in the top eight.”
Sanford believes these are tough goals to meet, but are not unrealistic for a first year athlete.
“I talked to my coach about jumping seven meters and that is pretty uncommon for a first year student to do, but it is very possible that I can do that this year,” he said.
For more on this season, read a future edition of the Times-Hearld.
