Lions athletes wrapped up the 2014 Canadian Championships with a bang on Sunday, walking away with seven of the club’s total 15 medals for the championship. Highlighting the day’s medal haul was Josh Cassidy’s double medal day as well as back to back gold for Sultana Frizell and Melissa Bishop.
Cassidy was the busiest Lion of the weekend, competing in four events, showing his wide range from 400m up to 5000m. On Sunday morning, the wheelchair racer put on a dominating performance in the T54 5000m, winning with ease in 11:22.51. Josh’s nearest closest competitor finished nearly 14 seconds behind him. Less than four hours later, the marathon world record holder would come back to finish a close second in the 800m race. The silver gave Josh a full set following his bronze in Saturday’s 1500m.
There may have been no surer bet for gold in these championships than hammer thrower Sultana Frizell. The Canadian record holder made quick work of the competition with a second round effort of 73.78m to secure her fifth national senior title. The mark was almost two meters further than her previous championship record set in 2010 and more than 8.5 metres ahead of her nearest competitor.
In the women’s 800m, Melissa Bishop showed her experience, calmy bidding her time early on before making her move on the second lap as she ran away from the field to victory. Crossing the line in 2:03.23, the Eganville native captures her second straight championship. Bishop will look to continue the level of success as she prepares for the Commonwealth Games later this month.
Other medals from Sunday included back to back bronze in the sprint hurdles from the pair of Ashlea Maddex and Sekou Kaba. Maddex equalled her lifetime best of 13.34 seconds to finish third behind Olympic finalists Phylicia George and Jessica Zelinka.
Oluwasegun Makinde capped off the championships with a silver medal in the 200m final. The University of Ottawa graduate’s time of 20.94 seconds was hampered by a stiff headwind of 2.3 m/s. Fellow sprinter Michael Robertson also picked up a silver in the men’s 400m with third best performance of his life, 46.34 seconds.
Other medalists from the weekend included:
Jared Broughton – Gold T13 800m and Silver T13 1500m
Jason Dunkerley – Gold T11 5000m
Rachael Burrows – Silver T34 100m and Silver T34 200m
Jon Dunkerley – Silver T11 400m
