The Ottawa Lions kicked off the new year with a bang yesterday at the Super Saturday Series Meet #2 at the Dome @ Louis-Riel. Leading the way were decathlete Patrick Arbour and sprinters Oluwasegun Makinde and Michael Robertson who combined to produce three Canadian leading marks and four personal bests.
Arbour kicked things off in the shot put with a sixth round throw of 15.11m, adding 45cm to the Dome record he set in December and producing his first ever throw over 15m. Arbour would follow that lifetime best performance with another in the pole vault as he cleared 4.46m for a share of the victory with Olivier Gauthier-Kwan.
On the track, Oluwasegun Makinde was in great early season form, producing two personal bests en route to winning the 60m hurdles in a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) leading time of 8.18 seconds. Makinde was also victorious in the flat 60m, winning in a time of 6.85 seconds.
Finishing third behind Makinde in the 60m was Michael Robertson in 6.96 seconds. The effort proved to be just a warm up last year’s University of Ottawa athlete of the year, as he followed that performance up with a speedy 33.40 second effort to win the 300m. Robertson’s time currently ranks as the top performance in Canada.
To wrap up the meet, Robertson teamed up with Oluwasegun Makinde, Toluwalope Makinde and Gabriel Tesfaye to produce a Canadian leading time in the 4x200m. The quartet, representing the University of Ottawa, won handily in a time of 1:25.91.
Other notable performances included Charifa Labarang running a personal best 7.69 seconds in the 60m heats. The performance would stand as a new Dome junior record for just a short period as Amelia Brohman of C.A.N.I. sped down the track in 7.67 seconds to take the win in the final. In the field, heptathlete Karla Shepard won the women’s high jump with a leap of 1.66m. The performance moves her to seventh on the club’s all-time performance list.
The Lions will return to action next Saturday as they head south to Canton, New York to take part in the St. Lawrence University Invitational.
