A 15-year-old Kelowna athlete dominated the track at the 2024 U18 Canadian Legions National Championships in Calgary.

Competing in these championships for the first time, Lily Stroda represented Team BC and competed against 20 athletes from across the country in a heptathlon. This consists of seven events: 100-metre hurdles, 200-metre run, 800-metre run, long jump, high jump, shot put, and javelin throw.

In the 100-metre hurdles, Stroda ran the fastest time in her category at 14.03 seconds, a 10th of a second faster than her previous best.

On the first day, she finished first in the 200-metre run with a personal-best time of 25.24 seconds and in the shot put, throwing 11.9 metres. The athlete finished second in the high jump event (1.59m).

Through the first four events, Stroda was first in the competition with 3,217 points.

On day two, she struggled out of the gate, finishing fifth in the long jump (5.09m). But Stroda made up for it in a big way in the javelin throw competition. After throws of 38.27 m and 37.16 m, Stroda was determined to throw it over 40 m, which is exactly what she did with her last throw. She set a national record for the heptathlon with a throw of 40.02m, more than eight metres more than second place.

At this point, Stroda just needed to finish the 800-metre run to win the national championships. She finished fifth in the event with a time of 2:37.04. 

In total, she won the championships with 5,076 points, which is the third most points of all-time in the competition. She was 330 points off the competition record, set by Nina Schultz in 1998. Being only 15, Stroda has a couple more years to try to break the record.

Despite not being scheduled to graduate Okanagan Mission Secondary until 2026, Stroda is already getting attention from multiple universities.