This past weekend 20 Lions athletes closed out the 2019 competitive season at the Legion National Championships in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. In total, the athletes registered 15 top 8 finishes including four medal winning performances.
David Adeleye was the first athlete to win medal at the Championships winning the U18 boys 110 metre hurdle final in 14.45 seconds, just off his personal best. The result was one of redemption for the Ashbury College student after a stumble in the OFSAA final back in June pushed Adeleye off the medal podium and down into eighth place.
Adeleye would also feature in the U18 boys 4×100 metre squad which placed fourth in a time of 43.61 seconds – seven tenths off the podium. Impressive was that the Lions were the only club team to finish among a group of six provincial squads. The team of Adeleye, Zach Bryant, Sam Frankowski, and Zach Meredith even managed to beat the Team Ontario entry by almost a full second.
It was another hurdler who grabbed the other individual medal of the weekend as Luca Nicoletti took silver in the U16 boys 200 metre hurdles. Nicoletti recovered from smacking the final hurdle to finish in a time of 25.26 seconds. Sunday’s result in the intermediate hurdles was almost Nicoletti’s second medal of the weekend. He had been leading the 100 metre hurdle final before getting tangled up at the seventh hurdle and dropping back to eighth.
In addition to his success in the individual events, Nicoletti also picked up two medals as part of relay teams. The U16 boys 4×100 metre relay team of Nicoletti, Yannick Meredith, Thomas Kukla-Colby, and Joshua Van Der Laan posted a time of 46.93 seconds to finish in third behind Alberta-Northwest Territories and Quebec. The exact same quartet of athletes lined up in the sprint medley relay race where they placed second in a speedy time of 3:45.90.
The pair of U18 girls relay teams were nothing if not consistent, posting fourth place finishes in each of the two relay events. First was the 4×100 metre event where the quartet of Katie Manor, Doyin Ogunremi, Audrey Gilmour and Paulina Procyk posted a blistering 48.97 second clocking to set a seasonal best. The same quartet filled out the line up card for the 4×400 metre relay where the ladies posted a time of four minutes and 3.26 seconds.
This weekend’s events marked the culmination of the 2018-19 season for our Foundation and ASpire programs. New programs are set to kick off the 2019-20 season in early September. Check out our Programs page for all the necessary information.