It was a great day for cross country racing atop historic Fort Henry as the City of Kingston played host to the Canadian Championships and a record 1110 entries on Saturday. Among the masses, a total of 33 Lions toed the line, combining for one individual top ten finish and two top five team finishes.
The 2018 Championships were again a story of success at the youth level with just a reversal in the team results. The U18 girls team of Rosalyn Barrett, Skye Pellerin, Cara MacDonald, Zoe Gardiner, Isabelle Honegger, Olivia Mackasill, Pippa Norman and Elana Tyman avenged the narrow fourth place finish of a year ago with a bronze medal performance.
The duo of Barrett and Pellerin led the squad, finishing 24th and 26th respectively. Rounding out the scorers were Cara MacDonald (41st) and Zoe Gardiner (67th). The ladies were just eight points behind the Edmonton Harriers who captured silver on the strength of Sadie Sigfstead’s individual win.
While the girls moved up a spot in 2018, the U18 boys dropped a spot after finishing third a year ago. Adam Sanger led the team with a tenth place overall finish, making him the club’s top finisher on the day and rebounding well from his 22nd place finish at OFSAA. Teammates Kevin Robertson (16th) and William Cox (24th) both cracked the top 25 while Colby Frost rounded out the scorers with his 101st overall placing.
While there were no scoring teams in either of the U20 categories, University of Ottawa freshman Nico Pedersen was the top male, placing 35th while Gee Gee sophmore Keili Shepherd was 33rd overall on the women’s side.
In the senior men’s 10 km event, Nic Roberts posted the top time, completing the course in 33 minutues 9.0 seconds to finish 75th overall. Despite finishing 128th overall, Jay Sneddon had a pretty noteworthy performance Saturday. The 25-year old Sneddon lost his shoe just three kilometres into the course. However, he didn’t let it faze him powering his way through the mud and up the hills to cross the line in 37 minutes 0.7 seconds with one bare foot.
On the women’s side, Shona McCulloch was 18th overall in 35 minutes 47.0 seconds.
Rounding out the performances, Liz Maguire finished third in the women’s 50-55 category. The 52 year old Maguire completed the 8km course in 33 minutes 0.1 seconds and was the 14th fastest female masters athlete on the day.
For photos from the nationals, check out the photo album on our Facebook page.
