The meteoric rise of provincial and western midget gold medallist Jakob Brinkhof started May 7 when he picked up a javelin.
“The first time I ever did it the javelin landed tail first in the ground 14 metres away,” recalled the St. Albert Mustangs Track and Field Club athlete.
Brinkhof’s personal best distance is now 46.19m, which the Team Alberta thrower hopes to surpass at the Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships next week in Langley, B.C.
“I want to go farther,” he said. “My goal would be to throw 50 (metres) at Legions, which will be very hard to do.”
Brinkhof, 15, has high hopes for Legion nationals but is realistic about his medal aspirations.
“I want to make it in the top eight and get all six of my throws in and hopefully set a PB and just represent St. Albert and Alberta the best I can,” he said. “It would be great to medal there but there will be some really far throws. I will have to pull something out to do it but it will be a fun experience.”
Brinkhof made the provincial squad with a winning toss of 44.75m at the Caltaf Track Classic in mid-June at Calgary. He stuck the javelin to eclipse not only his previous best mark at the time, but the provincial Legion national standard of 42.00m for U16 males.
“My goal this year was just make it to the western Canadian championships, which I did and I won there, but Legions is the icing on the cake,” he said. “It’s a really good opportunity. I get to represent St. Albert and Alberta the best way I can.”
Last weekend at the Western Canadian Midget and Youth Championships in Calgary, Brinkhof set his new mark of 46.19 on the fifth of his six throws to win the 14-15 midget event.
Ty Noyes of the Mustangs was the silver medallist at 40.70m.
“To be able to wear Alberta across my chest when I was there and to win it was great. It just felt like I was something bigger for a bit. I wasn’t just throwing for me to get that gold, I was doing it for Alberta to get that gold,” said Brinkhof.
He was also awarded bronze in discus (39.95m) and the hammer throw (31.43m) and placed fourth in shot put (11.51m) at westerns.
The provincial Legion standards for those throws are 41.40m for discus, 44.50m for the hammer throw and 13.65m for shot put.
“I do all the throws and I’m OK at them but javelin is the only true throw. Shot put is a put. With discus it’s a release. The hammer, it’s hold on for dear life,” said the Grade 11 Bellerose Composite High School student.
Brinkhof was also the sixth-place finisher in the junior javelin event at 40.45m at the high school provincials in early June as an underage competitor (he skipped Grade 9 at Lorne Akins School to enroll in the International Baccalaureate program at Bellerose as a Grade 10 student).
Next year Brinkhof will compete again at high school provincials as a junior because of his age and throw an 800 gram javelin, compared to the 600g spear in midget.
At the recent provincial championships in Sherwood Park, Brinkhof set midget male meet standards of 44.42m in javelin (record was 41.87m) and 31.94m in the hammer throw (record was 30.85m) for gold medals. He also won bronze in shot put (12.03m).
Brinkhof is pleasantly surprised by the progress he’s made in javelin in such a short time.
“It’s fun and amazing because this is my first year doing it,” he said. “It’s a really high level of competition compared to school track, especially junior high track. When I did (school track) it was good competition but here it’s the best of the best across the province so for me to do this well at this high level is just crazy.”
Brinkhof credits Mike Robinson, the Mustangs’ head coach and throws coach, for his rapid acceleration.
“He has been working on my technique gradually. We haven’t been going leaps and bounds ahead each time because it didn’t work well for me in shot put when I did it. We’ve just been going gradually and the next few years I will get better and better and better.”
The six-foot-one righty credits his rep baseball experience as a pitcher with the St. Albert Cardinals for his javelin success.
“I have a strong arm and it just came naturally,” said the provincial MVP in peewee AAA. “I played baseball for seven or eight years. Last year I was on the bantam AAA team, but this year I just wanted to try something new and I’m glad I did.”
