Adam Palamar is having the type of season most athletes dream of and Monday evening he did something that many track fans in Canada couldn’t have dreamed of any time soon – break Kevin Sullivan’s 20 year old Canadian Junior Record for 1500m. By crossing the line in 7th place at the Harry Jerome Classic in Vancouver yesterday, Palamar covered 1500m faster than any Canadian junior male ever had, stopping the clock in 3:38.92. Sullivan, considered to be Canada’s greatest ever 1500m runner, had previously set the record of 3:39.11 at the 1992 IAAF World Junior Championships in Seoul. Monday’s time improvement was just one of many that has come the way of the Merivale High School grad this season. Adam, who had been plagued by injuries during his high school days, entered the season with a personal best of 3:51.51 but has managed to chop valuable seconds off on four occasions this year. Palamar, who will be in Ste Therese, Quebec to defend his Canadian Junior title next weekend, is now ranked seventh in the world among juniors according to the IAAF.
Palamar was not the only Ottawa Lion success story in Vancouver as both Sultana Frizell and Melissa Bishop claimed victories in their respective events. Frizell took home her first NTL victory of the season with a throw of 71.39m over an international field that included Olympic fifth place finisher Kathrin Klass of Germany. The winning throw was Sultana’s second best of the season and a marked improvement over her 68m throw from two day’s prior at the Edmonton International Track Classic, where she finished second.
On the track, Bishop continued to show her strength as Canada’s top female 800m runner as she comfortably grabbed her third straight NTL victory on Monday. Bidding her time near the front of the race through 600m, Bishop made her sprint for home in the final 200m, running away from Karine Belleau-Beliveau of Quebec to win in a season’s best 2:00.67. Bishop’s previous NTL victories had come in Edmonton, two days prior, as well as Toronto in mid June. Up next for both Bishop and Frizell is the NTL finale in Victoria this Friday where they both hope to claim the league trophies in their respective events as well the $4500 prize money that goes with it.
Also making news this weekend were a small group of Espoir athletes (under 23 years of age) at the Canada Games Trials in Windsor. In total, four athletes were named to Team Ontario on Monday for the summer event that takes place once every four years. Representing the Lions this in Sherbrooke, Quebec will be Devyani Biswal (100m Hurdles), Devin Biocchi (400m), Mohamed Souleiman (1500m), and Alex Behre (3000m Steeplechase). Each of these athletes qualified by virtue of finishing in the top two in their event this past weekend as well as hitting the Games standard. Both Biocchi and Souleiman were recent finalists at the Canadian Championships in Moncton, while Biswal just missed out on the final with a tenth place finish. The track and field portion of the Canada Summer Games takes place during the second week of the event, August 11-18.
