It may have been cold outside, but the performances on the track and in the field were heating up yesterday at the Super Saturday Series Meet #1 being held at the Dome @ Louis-Riel. In the Ottawa Lions final meet heading into the holiday season, Victoria McIntyre, Erinn Stenman-Fahey, Emma Galbraith, Adam Richardson and Justin Cuddihey made good use of their last opportunities to set age class records at the Dome, while Patrick Arbour broke the open men’s shot put record.
McIntyre, who set a meet record over 300m just two weeks ago at St. Lawrence University, dropped her personal best by  nearly eight tenths of a second, crossing the line in 39.93 seconds. While she only had an eye on breaking Fiona Callendar’s youth record of 40.45, her effort also eclipsed Christiane Lela’s junior record of 40.09 set in 2007.
In the women’s 1000m, midget runner, Erinn Stenman-Fahey edged out teammate Claire Smith to take the victory and set a new midget record of 2:56.49, while Smith finished in 2:57.60. In fact, both runners came in under the former record of 2:59.55 held by Alanna Shearman. Stenman-Fahey broke the midget 300m record as well. On the men’s side, youth also reigned supreme as 16 year old Lucas Trapeau edged out Jeff Mountjoy of Queen’s University to win in 2:33.05 while 15 year old Justin Cuddihey ran 2:44.82 to break Trapeau’s midget record.
Over 1500m, Alex Behre produced an excellent early season result, edging out former Queen’s University runner Michael Nishiyama to win in 3:55.70. In third place was 17 year old Adam Richardson who’s time of 3:56.50 took 35 one hundreds of a second of the previous record held by Adam Palamar. The women’s side featured a duel between junior Emma Galbraith and former University of Ottawa Gee-Gee Jen Perreault, who was making her debut in the event. The two women were never more than a couple feet from each other the entire race, but in the homestretch, Galbraith would outsprint Perreault to win in a record 4:28.56. Perreault crossed the line in 4:28.84. Another excellent result from the women’s 1500m came from youth runner Olivia Robertson who took eight seconds off her PB to finish in 4:34.29.
Decathlete Patrick Arbour demonstrated his versatility Saturday with his victories in the men’s 60m hurdles and the shot put. Arbour, who has been working on his running technique of late saw the fruits of his labour with a speedy time of 8.48 seconds in the hurdles, a 0.03 second improvement on his personal best. In the field, the former thrower produced one of the best series of his life, with his shortest throw measuring 14.24m. He would win with a record setting toss of 14.67m.
Other performances of note Saturday included University of Ottawa freshman Nelson Cecereu’s victory in the men’s pole vault with a PB and school record clearance of 4.36m. Also, in the women’s 150m, high school senior Charifa Labarang just missed out on national team member Kimberley Hyacinthe’s youth record with a time of 18.35 seconds. However, she did beat he next closest competitor by nearly a second.
The Lions return to action Saturday, January 12th as they host Super Saturday Series Meet #2 at the Dome @ Louis-Riel.
