The Gee Gee women’s team found themselves back in the USports top ten rankings this week after a number of national level performances at last weekend’s uOttawa Winternational Invitational. The team was led by veteran Madison Clarke who competed in four events over the two days of competition.
Running the 800m Friday night, Clarke clocked the second fastest 800m race of her life, finishing second to the University of Toronto Track Club’s Madeline Kelly in two minutes 6.75 seconds. Using the USport conversion table, the performance now ranks Clarke tops in the country for the 1000m, improving upon her previous ranking of sixth, and automatically qualifies her for this year’s USport Championships.
The psychology student’s work was far from over as she opened Saturday’s competition with a time of one minute 31.54 seconds to win the 600m over teammate Maeliss Trapeau (1:32.29). The performances moved each women up to fourth and sixth in the national rankings. To round out the day, Clarke won a tight battle over Svetlana Martynova in the 1500m and then produced the quickest leg on the Gee Gees 4x400m relay (56.9 seconds) to lead them to a sixth place national ranking.
In the field, Christina Hertner took gold in the women’s shot put with a seasonal best effort of 12.96 metres. The throw now places the third year International Development student eighth in the USport rankings.
On the men’s side, Stephen Evans out battled club mate Sebastian Saville to win Friday night’s 800m event. Evans crossed in 1:50.45, just ahead of Saville’s 1:50.62. Like Clarke, Evans’ converted mark is a national leading time for the 1000m and confirms his return to the national event. Running the 600 metres Saturday, the defending USport silver medalist was victorious in a time of 1:19.86. Gee Gee teammate Andrew Heffernan produced a lifetime best of 1:20.19 to take second spot in the event. The pair are now ranked fifth and ninth respectively in USport.
The Lions return to action this weekend at the McGill Team Challenge in Montreal.