It’s all in the title. The Ravens Last Chance Meet Saturday at the Dome @ Louis-Riel was a final opportunity for university athletes to improve their position ahead of next weekend’s conference championships. For a number of our varsity athletes it was an opportunity well used as 41 new personal bests were achieved – including a new high jump record for the Gee-Gee’s Thomas Senechal-Becker.
Coming off a new school record the week before, Senechal-Becker was looking for a couple more centimetres ahead of the Ontario University Athletics Championship heading into Saturday’s competition and he did not disappoint. The second year health sciences student had already upped the record with a third attempt clearance at 2.10 metres when he upped the ante by raising the bar to 2.15.
Following a narrow miss on his first attempt, Senechal-Becker could be seen seeking out Head Coach Richard Johnston. While the rationale wasn’t clear at the moment, as soon as he stepped back onto the apron to attempt his second jump it was all quite evident. The Canada Games silver medalist removed his Gee-Gee split shorts to jump only in his half length tights.
The shorts were all the drag that appeared to be holding him back as he sprung up over the bar that stood more than seven feet in height and returned to the mat with cheers of exuberance ringing throughout the south end of the facility. With his new school record, Thomas now sits second in the USports rankings, one centimetre behind the University of Toronto’s Aidan Grout.
A trio of Gee-Gee relay teams also showed they were rounding in to form ahead of the championship season – recording seasonal bests on Saturday. The biggest changes came in the 4×400 metre relays with both the men and women dropping well over three seconds off their previous bests.
The men’s team of Fabrice Nonez, Thomas Kukla-Colby, Lucas Zanetti, and David Moulongou dropped four and a half seconds off their season’s best as they took second spot in a time of 3:19.15. The mark was the fastest by a Gee-Gees team since the 2014 USports Championship.
On the women’s side, Katie Manor, Doyin Ogunremi, Brooklyn McCormik, and Kennedy Banton-Lindsay set a new meet record with their winning time of 3 minutes and 54.50 seconds. The quartet’s time should be fast enough to put them in the fastest section for the OUA championships.
On the Ravens side, a pair of records were set by Laura Cross and Adam Nuradeen. A first year Biochemistry student, Cross broke the school record in the women’s 600 metres with her time of 1 minute and 39.61 seconds. The previous record of 1:40.48 had been set by Miryam Yakub Aga in 2018. For Mr. Nuradeen, it was his second record in as many weeks as the triple jumper added 19 centimetres to his previous best to land at 13.61 metres on Saturday.
Both varsity programs return to action on Friday in their respective OUA and RSEQ Championships.
For updated rankings, please visit the following links:
Lions Rankings – https://milesrowat.shinyapps.io/ottl_rankings
Gee Gee Rankings – https://milesrowat.shinyapps.io/uottawatf_rankings
Ravens Rankings – https://milesrowat.shinyapps.io/ravenstf_rankings