After ten months of competition and twenty seven races, Erinn Stenman-Fahey ended her season the way anyone would hope to – on a podium. The 21 year old closed out her 2018-19 season Saturday at the North American Central American and Caribbean Under 23 Championships in Queretaro, Mexico where she was a bronze medalist at 800 metres.
With only seven runners in the field, it was straight to the final for Stenman-Fahey who had not raced the distance since finishing 16th at last month’s NCAA Championships. However, the former Iowa State Cyclone appeared unfazed by the time off as she was right on the leaders heels as they hit the bell in 62 seconds. However, the effects of running at nearly 6,000 feet above sea-level appeared to take a toll on Stenman-Fahey, who fell off the swift pace of American runners Avi’ta Wilson-Perteete and Nia Akins to finish third in two minutes and 11.57 seconds – four seconds back of silver. Saturday’s medal was the second international medal of Stenman-Fahey’s career as also won bronze four years ago as a member of the Canadian 4×400 metre relay team at the Pan Am Under 20 Championships.
Closer to home, the Lions hosted the Big Athletics Weekend, featuring three days off competition under the sun and a little bit of rain on Friday. Among the events hosted were the heptathlon and decathlon, the latter of which featured a sweep off the medals by Lions athletes. Winning the open decathlon was JC Van Biljon with a score of 6206 points, 115 ahead of teammate Kevin Nault. Taking the bronze was Raphaël Choquette who finished with personal best score of 5795 points. Emily Sprague was fourth in the open women’s heptathlon, amassing a personal best 4268 point.
In the U18 women’s category, the pair of Vienna Courteau and Skye Pellerin contested the heptathlon for the first time. Courteau, who was an OFSAA Champion in the long jump last month, scored 3912 points to finish second – a mark that now ranks her 10th in Canada. Pellerin was fourth with 2902 points.
Other notable performances came in the men’s 400 metres and women’s 400 metre hurdles. Stephen Evans was the class of the men’s 400 metre field winning in a convincing time of 49.09 seconds – more than half a second ahead of second place. The mark was also bettered his previous lifetime best set back in 2016. For the women, Mary Ollier and Marie-Eve Dahms led a 1-2 personal best finish in the intermediate hurdle event. While Ollier dropped over half a second off her best to win in 1:01.81, Dahms erased nearly two full seconds from her best as she crossed the line second in 1:02.00.