Ottawa Lions athletes delivered a number of commanding performances at last Thursday’s NCSSAA East Conference Championships at the Terry Fox Athletic Facility. Among the highlights were more than 120 personal bests and multiple championship records rewritten throughout the day.
Louis-Riel’s Jorai Oppong-Nketiah not only claimed double gold in the senior girls sprints, but also set a pair of meet records in the process. The University of Kentucky-bound senior captured the 100 metres in 11.92, lowering her own championship record by four hundredths of a second. She later added the 200-metre title after running a meet-record 24.75 in the preliminaries before crossing the line in 25.73 in the final.
Classmate Ayoub Shangai completed the rare sprint treble in the senior boys division, winning the 100 metres in 10.92, the 200 metres in 22.13, and the 400 metres in 50.45. Like Oppong-Nketiah, Shangai’s top 200-metre performance came in the preliminaries, where he posted a personal-best 21.66 — narrowly missing Olympian Segun Makinde’s meet record of 21.62 set in 2009.
Continuing the Louis-Riel success into the field events, Grade 11 student Mallea McMullin dominated the senior girls javelin, launching the 600-gram implement 42.00 metres — more than 10 metres clear of the field and just 20 centimetres shy of the meet record set in 1981. McMullin also topped the discus standings with a throw of 28.14 metres to secure her second gold medal of the day.
St. Francis Xavier’s Shannon Dewar earned a pair of victories in the senior girls middle-distance events, taking the 400 metres in 59.18 before adding the 800-metre title in 2:23.34.
In the junior girls distance events, Glebe’s Reve McInnes swept all three races, winning the 800 metres (2:38.06), 1500 metres (5:08.53), and 3000 metres (11:10.96).
Hillcrest’s Emily Munro added another distance double for the Lions in the senior girls category, winning both the 1500 metres in 4:58.54 and the 3000 metres in 10:44.28.
Glebe’s Anabelle Muir led the way in the junior girls hurdles events, capturing the 80-metre hurdles title in 13.48 before winning the 300-metre hurdles in 50.22. Earlier this spring, Muir also established a new East Conference record in the pole vault after clearing 3.46 metres at a pre-season competition.
Staying in the field events, Garneau’s Maxime Cazabon put together a strong multi-event performance in the junior boys division. Cazabon tied for top spot in the high jump after clearing 1.80 metres and captured the triple jump title with a personal-best leap of 13.27 metres.
The novice girls division featured a standout performance from Glebe’s Roan Gerth, who completed a unique triple by winning the 1500 metres in 5:10.96, the 3000 metres in 11:45.74, and the 300-metre hurdles in 49.17 — narrowly missing the 32-year-old meet record of 48.89. Her combination of endurance and hurdling ability could make her a natural fit for the steeplechase in the years ahead.
In the novice boys sprints, Mer Bleue’s William Lussier swept the 100 metres (11.62), 200 metres (24.14), and 400 metres (57.02).
Osgoode’s Dylan Deboer added another meet record to the Lions tally in the intellectually impaired 100 metres, trimming 14 hundredths off his own championship standard from last season in a winning time of 13.75.