By Eli Haims and David Lim

After qualifying for the American team with second place finishes at World Youth Track and Field Trials last Wednesday, Cami Chapus ’12 and Amy Weissenbach ’12 are currently competing at the International Association of Athletics Federations World Youth Track and Field Championships. The event, which is taking place in Lille, France, started today and runs until July 10.

Running a personal 1500-meters best of 4:22:69, Chapus qualified in a preliminary heat Wednesday morning to advance to the finals. She will compete in the finals Saturday against 11 of the top under-17 athletes in her event internationally.

Weissenbach will run in her first race on Thursday. To move on to the semi-finals, a runner must either come in the top four in her heat or have one of the four best time of the runners who did not qualify. Weissenbach has the fastest personal record, which she set at the CIF state championships in June with a time of 2:02.04, of any of the runners, with a gap of over four seconds from the next fastest competitor.