Lions weekend round-up

While the weather was just peaking above the freezing mark at home on Friday, the trio of Sekou Kaba, Karelle Edwards and Oluwasegun Makinde were in the north of Florida looking for hot temperatures and even hotter times on the track as they open their 2015 seasons.
Competing in his specialty, the 110 metre hurdles, Sekou Kaba proved himself the class of the field at the University of North Florida Spring Break Invitational winning in a windy 13.91 seconds. According to Coach Andy McInnis, Kaba was slowed after getting in to a hitting battle with second place finisher Kemar Clarke of Bethune Cookman University. Sekou was also the top qualifier to the final, running a seasonal best 13.83.
In the women’s sprint hurdles, Karelle Edwards showed consistency in both the preliminaries and final on her way to a second place overall finish. After running 13.73 seconds in the preliminaries, Edwards followed up with a 13.75 clocking as she ran into a 2.4 metre per second headwind.
Working on finding his competition legs, sprinter Oluwasegun Makinde completed the 200m/400m double. Makinde finished fifth in his specialty, the 200m, in a time of 21.44 seconds before returning later in the day to run 48.80 in the 400m, just 0.07 seconds off his PB set in 2009.
At the Arkansas Spring Invitational in Fayetteville, Emma Galbraith finished third in the 800m in a time of 2 minutes 10.56 seconds. Galbraith was a 2013 CIS Rookie of the Year at the University of Ottawa before transferring to the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma this past fall.
At the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Guiyang, China, Claire Smith pulled out after completing the first of three two kilometer loops in the junior women’s race. Smith was the first Lion to represent Canada at world cross since Danelle Woods made back to back appearances in 2007 and 2008.