It was a high jump battle for the ages Saturday afternoon in Windsor. With the 4×4 relays wrapped up on the track, the focus turned to the infield of the Dennis Fairall Fieldhouse where the University of Ottawa’s Thomas Senechal-Becker and Toronto’s Aiden Grout put on what could be considered the greatest OUA Championship battle of the century. Unfortunately for Senechal-Becker, not even a third school record in as many weeks was good to secure the gold medal.
Despite a miss at his opening height, Senechal-Becker’s first attempt clearance at 2.05 metres put the second year health sciences student in the competition’s driver’s seat. With a virtually clean sheet, Thomas would ride the lead right through a new lifetime best clearance of 2.17 metres on his first try. It was at this point things got interesting as Grout, still in second, passed to 2.20 metres for a shot to repeat as OUA champion.
Despite some strong attempts at 2.20, Senechal-Becker could only watch as Grout pulled out a third attempt clearance for a new lifetime best of his own as the men re-took their same spots on the medal stand from the year before.
The next highest finish for the Gee-Gees also came from a second year student – Vienna Courteau. Competing in just her second pentathlon, Courteau was firing on all cylinders as she strung together five fine performances, led by an eight centimetre personal best in the high jump, to score a personal best 3226 points and finish fourth overall.
Just one rung up on the pentathlon leader board was fellow Lion Audrey Goddard, competing for Western University. The first year student recorded a lifetime best of 3564 points on her way to bronze as she secured her spot in the upcoming USports Championship in Saskatoon in just under two weeks.
In Friday’s 4×800 relay, Lions Gillian Porter and Elizabeth Vroom ran the final two legs for Queen’s University to help propel the Gaels to bronze. Porter took the stick in fifth place and proceeded to run the fastest 800 metres of her life to move Queen’s to fourth before Vroom followed suit with a similar performance to narrowly pass McMaster and find a way on to the podium.
The pair followed up their relay podium with a pair of personal bests in Saturday’s 1500 metre final. Vroom covered the seven and a half laps in 4 minutes and 35.31 seconds on her way to a fifth place finish. Porter was 13th in 4:42.18.
In the men’s 60 metre hurdles, Club U23 record holder David Adeleye just missed out on the podium. Running for the University of Toronto, the third year human kinetics student ran the third fastest time of his life, 7.97 seconds, to place fourth – just four hundredths off the podium.
Other notable finishes from the weekend included:
Brianna Asiamah (4th – Shot Put)
Katie Manor (7th – 60m)
Jackson Colquhoun (7th – Triple Jump)
Doyin Ogunremi (8th – 300m)
David Moulongou (8th – 600m)
Katie Manor, Brooklyn McCormik, Kennedy Banton-Lindsay, Doyin Ogunremi (7th – 4x200m)
Katie Manor, Brooklyn McCormik, Kennedy Banton-Lindsay, Doyin Ogunremi (8th – 4x400m)
Fabrice Nonez, Thomas Kukla-Colby, Lucas Zanetti, David Moulongou (8th – 4x400m)