It may have been a light first day at the Canadian Junior Championships in Ste. Therese, Quebec, but Lion’s steeplechasers made the most of the day’s only finals.
Ontario high school girls champion Maggie Scheunert hit the track first, in the women’s 2000m steeplechase, finishing ninth in a personal best 7:26.73. The first year junior athlete had finished 13th in 2013.
In the men’s 3000m steeplechase, Farah Abdulkarim was making his debut at the distance, and certainly made the most of it. Coming off a bronze in the 2000m steeplechase at the recent OFSAA championships, Farah banged out consistent laps of 72-74 seconds to finish fifth in a time of 9:13.36. Despite the debut performance for the 18 year old, the time was just off World Junior Standard and now ranks him sixth all-time in club history.
In the women’s 100m, 16 year old Shyvonne Roxborough finished second in the morning qualifying round with a time of 12.44 seconds to advance to the evening’s semi-finals where she would wind up 11th overall as the competition’s youngest competitor. Teammates Alex Telford and Charifa Labarang would place 13th and 15th overall.
The Lions return to action today at 11:15pm when four time OFSAA champion Zachary Kerr goes for gold in the men’s pole vault.
