It’s been 45 years since the Royal Canadian Legion Track and Field Championships started with their first event in Oromocto, New Brunswick. From those first championships in 1977 through today, Lions athletes have amassed an impressive 185 medals including 72 golds.
At the latest iteration, held this past weekend at the University of Sherbrooke, Lions athletes added eight more medals to the collection.
Completing a feat never accomplished by any Lions female sprinter, Jorai Oppong-Nketiah swept the 100 and 200 metre sprint events at the Legion Championships. Coming off a commanding win over 100 metres at the Ontario Championships the week before, Jorai was the event favourite and she did not disappoint – taking gold in 12.07 seconds.
Unlike her previous two championship performances of the summer, Oppong-Nketiah contested the 200 metres and quickly ran away from the competition. After producing a personal best of 24.68 seconds in the heats, Jorai topped off her competition with a 24.65 second effort in the final. Her performance ranks as the second fastest among U16 females in Club history.
After just falling short of the podium at the Canadian Under-20 Championships last month, Zachary Jeggo found his way to the national podium on three occasions in Sherbrooke. Individually, new personal bests at both the flat 400 and 400 metre hurdles catapulted the Louis-Riel student to silver medals.
Jeggo’s time of 55.33 in the hurdle event is the fastest ever by a Club member in the U18 age category, while his 48.60 second run in the flat 400 ranks him third. Of course, he still has another year ahead of him to get that record as well.
In addition to the individual exploits, Jeggo’s fast legs also helped the U18 boys team of Safwan El Mansari, William Sanders and Erick Zielonka capture silver in the 4×400 metre event. The quartet finished in a time of 3:22.15 to best the Club U18 record set by El Mansari, Sanders, Jeggo and Timeo Atonfo earlier this summer.
Similar to Jeggo, Quinn Coughlin also picked up a pair of medals at the Legion Championships after a pair of fourth place finishes at the U20 Championships. The Opeongo student captured bronze in both of the 400 and 400 metre hurdle events with times of 57.11 and 1:02.84 respectively.
A year removed from a registration error that kept Timeo Atonfo off the start list in the long jump, the Gisele-Lalonde student showed the country just what they were missing out on as he took home the silver medal in the U18 event. A third round effort of 6.89 metres surpassed his previous best heading into the event and leaves him ranked fifth all-time in the Club in the U18 category.
Full results from the championship are available at: https://ottawalions.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2023_Legion_National_Results.pdf
Updated Club rankings are available at: https://milesrowat.shinyapps.io/ottl_rankings/