It was a small group that travelled to Montreal last weekend for the Canadian Indoor Track and Field Championships, but that didn’t stop them from bringing a large collection of medals back to Ottawa with them. In total, Lions athletes captured nine medals over the three day event with nearly half going to the Moreland family.
Sisters Elizabeth and Kathryn Moreland combined for four medals in Montreal – all of them gold. They each topped their respective fields in the pentathlon on Saturday, a one day test over five events. Kathryn was victorious in the U20 category with a score of 3175 points while Elizabeth totalled 2703 to top the open category. Teammate Coralie Ostertag took home silver behind Elizabeth.
To round out a busy Saturday, all three athletes teamed up with Natalie Feberova, 5th in the U20 pentathlon, to capture top spot in the open women’s 4×200 metre event.
Elizabeth rounded out her medal haul on the final day of competition with a gold in the high jump. She cleared a height of 1.53 metres for gold, beating out Dynamique de Laval’s Samira Yao by three centimetres.
Two other Lions athletes found their way onto the podium Saturday evening with both Leewinchell Jean and Brooklyn McCormick garnering silver medals in their respective events.
Competing in the open 60 metre hurdles, Jean lost a tight battle for gold with Durham Legion’s Ashton Colaire. His time of 8.25 seconds, the second fastest time of his season, was just five hundredth’s back of the winner.
McCormick culminated a long indoor season with national silver at 800 metres. The graduate student at the University of Toronto finished in 2:20.59, beaten to the line by 2020 Olympian Reagan Yee in a tactical affair.
The final day of the Championship saw the Lions add the final two medals to their collection. Nicolas Belan, who has had a very strong indoor season, closed things out with a silver in U20 1500 metres. In a quintessential championship 1500, the 18-year-old lost in a quick to the line with London Western’s Liam Smith, 4:01.30 to 4:01.45.
Balqis Chouikhi took home the final medal of the Championship as she cleared a height of 2.85 metres in the pole vault to take silver in the U18 event. Chouikhi’s medal is the first national medal for a Lions vaulter since Caroline Poirier also won silver at the 2018 Canadian U20 Championships.
Full results from the Championship are available on our website.
Updated Club rankings can be found at https://milesrowat.shinyapps.io/ottl_rankings/