VILLANOVA, Pa.—Rising sophomores Sanaä Barnes (Keller, Texas) and Lydia Olivere (Wilmington, Del.) along with incoming freshman Maggie Smith (Halifax, N.S.) are competing this weekend in Costa Rica at the Pan American U20 Athletics Championships.  Barnes and Olivere will be representing the United States in the high jump and the 3000 meter steeplechase, respectively, while Smith will be running for Canada in the 1500 meters. 
 
This year marks the 20^th edition of the Pan American U20 Athletics Championships, which were first held in 1980 and which are open to under-20 athletes from the Americas.  The meet is organized by the Association of Panamerican Athletics, with this year's event taking place at Estadio Nacional in San Jose, Costa Rica.  Live action from the U20 Championships will be streaming throughout the weekend on flotrack.org and the FloSports app. 
 
Barnes will be the first of the three Villanova athletes to compete this weekend and is one of 11 competitors in the women's high jump scheduled for 6:55 p.m. local time on Saturday evening (8:55 p.m. Eastern time).  She came in second at the USATF U20 National Track and Field Championships last month when she cleared the bar at a height of 1.80 meters (5-10.75). 
 
Barnes, who earned first team All-America honors and was the BIG EAST champion in in the high jump both indoors and outdoors as a freshman this past season, is no stranger to competing at a high level in international competition.  Last summer prior to her collegiate debut, Barnes came in eighth in her qualifying group with a height of 1.82 meters (5-11.5) at the IAAF World U20 Championships.  She had recorded her lifetime best mark of 1.85 meters (6-0.75) at the USATF Junior Outdoor Championships earlier in the 2018 summer season.
 
This weekend's Pan American meet concludes on Sunday when both Smith and Olivere will be in action.  The women's 1500 meters is a final-only race which will be held on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. Eastern time).  Smith recorded a personal best time of 4:21.94 in the 1500 meters at the NSSAF Track and Field Championships on June 1 to qualify as one of two representatives from Athletics Canada in the 1500 meters.  It has been a successful year of competition for Smith in 2019, as she has recorded personal best times in the 1000 meters, the 1500 meters and the 3000 meters indoors as well as the 1500 meters, Mile, 3000 meters and 5000 meters outdoors. 
 
Olivere will compete in the 3000 meter steeplechase on Sunday at 12:20 p.m. local time (2:20 p.m. Eastern time).  She is coming off a remarkable win in the steeplechase at the USATF U20 meet last month.  In that race, just her fourth lifetime steeplechase competition, Olivere missed the turn for the first pass through the water jump and found herself in ninth place in the race after backtracking for the jump.  She made up ground in just one lap around the track and settled into third place before making another big move with less than two laps to go.  Olivere was two seconds off the lead with 800 meters left but took the lead approaching the bell and wound up pulling away to a margin of victory of just over three seconds.
 
A newcomer to the steeplechase this outdoor season, Olivere raced in the event for the first time at the Florid Relays on March 29.  She posted a time of 10:28.73 in that race, lowered the mark to 10:22.93 in a runner-up finish at the BIG EAST Championships and went on to record a time of 10:24.48 at the NCAA East Preliminary where she came in 21^st in a field of the top 48 steeplechasers in the eastern half of the country.
 
Click on the links at the top of this release to access the meet schedule, results and streaming video from this weekend's Pan American U20 Athletics Championships.