It was a big day for the University of Ottawa Gee Gees on day one of the OUA Track and Field Championships in Windsor, featuring numerous personal bests, two CIS automatic qualifying performances and six medals.
It was rookie Emma Galbraith bringing home the first medal of the day, out sprinting former Lion Rachel Aubry to win gold in the 1000m in 2:49.29. Galbraith will be back in action today as she looks for a second medal in the 600m.
The second gold medal came from Devin Biocchi as he beat a talented 300m field that featured teammates Oluwasegun Makinde and Michael Robertson. Biocchi’s time of 34.33 seconds was three tenths ahead of Makinde, who took home bronze. Robertson was fourth in 34.74.
Makinde picked up another medal in the 60m hurdles, finishing second in 8.13 seconds. He had previously set a new personal best of 8.02 seconds in the heats. Joining Segun in the final were teammates Gabriel Tesfaye and Hubert Chevrette-Belisle, who both ran 8.38 seconds to finish 5th and 6th respectively.
Chevrette-Belisle didn’t leave the track empty handed though, as he claimed his first OUA bronze with a 3570 point performance in the pentathlon. His performance was just two points off his personal best set earlier this year at the McGill Team Challenge.
Second year hurdler Devyani Biswal picked up the final Gee-Gee medal, sprinting to bronze in a new personal best time of 8.56 seconds. Biswal has had a breakout season that has seen her drop nearly three quarters of a second off her time as she looks poised to make a run at Ashlea Maddex’s school record of 8.49 seconds at the CIS championships in two weeks time. Joining Biswal in Edmonton will be rookie Tania Bambi as she ran an automatic qualifying time of 8.71 seconds to finish 5th in the hurdle final.
Also punching her ticket to the Alberta capital was Sarah de Carufel, who sped to a personal best and automatic qualifying time of 7.63 seconds enroute to winning her 60m heat. De Carufel will look to better that time and challenge for a medal today in both the semi-final and finals.
