It was a record breaking weekend for Lion Hazel Harding at this past weekend’s Ontario Masters Indoor Championships held at York University. The 45 year old Harding teamed up with Debbie Zinman and Violeta Garfunkel of the University of Toronto Track Club and Nicole Armstrong of Peterbrough to set a new provincial record in the women’s 40 and over 4x200m relay.
While Harding, Zinman, and Garfunkel all compete in the W45 age category, they moved down an age group because of Armstrong and set the new standard at 2:07.05. The collegial makes it fairly common from athletes from various clubs to band together for relay running at the culmination of a competition. In addition to her record setting relay performance, Harding also captured gold in the W45 400m in a time of 71.93 seconds.
While not breaking any records, Liz Maguire dominated the W50 fields over 800 and 1500 metres. The 52 year-old Maguire was nearly 100m ahead of her nearest competitor as she crossed the line for the 800m in 2:38.98. It was a similar story over 1500m as Maguire’s time of 5:14.48 was nearly 23 seconds ahead of second place.
Gold also went to Neil Cunningham in the M40 60 metres. The 40 year old was a narrow winner over Sunday Eniojukan, crossing the line in a time of 8.27 seconds. However, in the 200m event the tables were reversed as Cunningham took silver to Eniojukan’s gold with a time of 27.34 seconds.
While he wasn’t the first to cross the line in the M50 400m, Serge Faucher was still the Ontario Champion, losing in a battle with American Khalid Mulazim who was competing as a guest. Faucher’s time of 56.63 seconds was just three one hundredths ahead of Newmark Huskie Mirco Graenert. Faucher was also a bronze medalist over 200m, finishing in 26.05 seconds.
Other medalists from the championship included:
Alex Manuel SILVER M29&U 60m
Alex Manuel GOLD M29&U 200m
Joseph Scatliffe SILVER M45 60m
Gilles Frenette BRONZE M40 800m
Gilles Frenette SILVER M40 400m
