OTTAWA — The Ottawa Lions officially kicked off the capital’s high school track and field season Thursday, hosting the Ravens Relays at the Terry Fox Athletic Facility.
With more than 1,000 entries, the meet once again served as an early-season benchmark for athletes across the region — and a strong opening statement from Lions athletes.
In total, club athletes combined for four meet records and more than 100 personal best performances over the course of the day.
Leading the way were the sprinters as both the girls and boys varsity 100 metre records fell to Lions athletes.
On the women’s side, Jorai Oppong-Nketiah, who delivered a dominant performance in the senior girls’ 100 metres. The Louis-Riel standout twice dipped under the previous meet standard – first running 12.18w in the heats before setting the official mark of 12.13 in the final.
On the boys’ side, Ange-Mathis Kramo of Paul-Desmarais matched the meet record set by Lion Stephan Balson two years ago with his time of 10.85 seconds. Training partner Ayoub Shangai finished a hair behind in 10.90 seconds. Impressive for the three performances is they were all set without the use of starting blocks.
In an early test of her speed, 800 metre star Ellie McGregor was the class of the varsity girls 400 metres. The grade 11 student from Immaculata finished 40 metres clear of the field, crossing the line in 57.40 seconds to better the previous record of 57.84 set last year by Lion Quinn Coughlin.
Middle-distance strength was also on display, highlighted by Jake Claydon-St. John of John McCrae. Competing in the junior varsity boys 800 metres, Claydon-St. John ran 2:05.97 to establish a new meet record by over a second and a half. He also posted a third place finish over 400m.
Another record nearly fell In the varsity boys 110-metre hurdles where Taisei Tan dominated the field with a 14.17 second clocking to win by nearly two seconds. Unfortunately for Tan, the wind was a hair above the legal limit at 2.1 m/s. Tan was also dominant in the 300 metre hurdles, posting a time of 39.14 seconds – nearly four seconds ahead of his nearest competitor.
The high school season continues this week with the uOttawa High School Invitational as the athletes build towards the NCSSAA Conference Championships the week of May 11th.