When Isabelle Kanz, Julia Britton and Liz O’Reilly kicked off the first day of the New Balance Collegiate Invitational in New York City with three personal bests in the 3000m you had a feeling there may be something special in the air. Kanz and O’Reilly each dropped five seconds from their previous bests, running 10:21.89 and 10:51.81 respectively while Julie Britton clipped a little over a second from her previous best with a 10:45.10 clocking.
However, the highlights of the day were performances by Emma Galbraith and Michael Robertson. Galbraith set a new University of Ottawa record in the 1000m with a time of 2:46.89 en route to finishing fourth in the Championship section. The time eclipsed Jen Perrault’s old record of 2:48.11 set last year and moves the Franco-Ouest grad to number four on the club’s all-time performance list.
Michael Robertson’s record setting performance came in the 500m as he improved upon both his club and University of Ottawa record by a tenth of a second with a 63.18 second clocking. Mike’s time placed him second in his heat and fourth overall in the Championship section.
More PB’s came in the hurdles, as Gabriel Tesfaye kicked things off with an 8.30 clocking in the college section prelims that also secured him a spot at this year’s CIS championships in Edmonton. Unfortunately, Tesfaye incurred a slight injury and was unable to run in the finals. However, teammate Hubert Chevrette-Belisle picked up the slack in the final, breaking the tape in a new PB 8.33 seconds.
In the women’s hurdle final, Devyani Biswal recorded her third PB of the season crossing the line in 8.67 seconds. With her run, Biswal has now taken six tenths of a seconds off her time this year and has secured her first CIS berth.
One of the other top performances on the day came from soccer player turned sprinter, Sarah De Carufel who sped to a seasonal best 7.72 seconds in the 60m. De Carufel was part of a four way tie for the 8th and final qualifying place for the college final, but ended up on the outside looking in when she lost the tie breaker by 0.001 seconds. She would continue her fast ways by running to a personal best 25.95 seconds over 200m later in the day.
The meet will recommence Saturday morning as Remy Binns takes to the track in the College Mile at 10:36am.
