Well it was certainly a case of good things coming in bunches Saturday evening as Lions athletes picked up four medals in a mere 45 minutes to close out the evening’s track session.
Training partners Jonathan Rioux and Andre Alie-Lamarch went 2-3 in the U20 men’s 3000m steeplechase, with a mere 13 one thousandths of a second separating the pair at the line. Saturday’s battle between the pair is not uncharted territory as they typically go hard after each other in their final training runs.
Last night, they both entered with the similar game plan of 73 second laps and let it all go in the final kilometre. “I didn’t expect it. I was just trying to hold on to the lead pack,” said Rioux of his silver medal performance. “I’m happy it turned out that way. It felt good,”
Next to make the podium was Farah Jacques, picking up bronze over the 100 metre hurdles in a time of 13.46 seconds. The Olympic finalist in the 4x100m relay has seen a great deal of success in her first season in the hurdles, running a personal best of 13.36 seconds and now picking up a national medal. Teammate Devyani Biswal followed closely behind in a time of 13.69 seconds to finish fourth.
Rounding out the evenings haul was Phillip Frank, who picked up his second bronze of the day, running 14.64 seconds in the U20 men’s 110 metre hurdles. Frank was a little disappointed with his performance in the high jump, despite picking up bronze, but was happy to come back and put down a pretty quick performance in the hurdles. Frank had hoped to compete in the decathlon competition this week, but felt it was too soon after his seventh place performance in last month’s New Balance Outdoor Nationals decathlon in North Carolina.
Action wraps up today at the Canadian Championships with plenty of medals still left to be handed out.
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Live Results: http://liveresults.athletics.ca/Live_Results/2018/Championships/
Live Stream: athleticscanada.tv
