A warm, sunny Saturday at Terry Fox Athletic Facility set the stage for a full day of track and field, as the Ottawa Lions hosted both the Ottawa Twilight #4 meet in the afternoon and the Canadian Track and Field League Final in the evening — the first competitive opportunity for many Lions athletes since the Canadian Championships earlier this month.
When the evening programme opened, it did so with a statement.
The first two events on the card were the women’s and men’s 400m hurdles, and Lions athletes were first across the line in both. Alexandra Telford started things off, crossing the line in a season-best 1:00.96 to claim the women’s title. The result was a fitting rebound for Telford after narrowly missing qualifying for the national final the week before following her illness in the lead up.
For David Moulongou Saturday’s victory was just another cherry on the ever-growing sundae that has been the 2026 season. A week to the day following his first national title, Moulongou made easy work of the field, cruising to victory in 51.54 — nearly a full second ahead of second place Keshawn Igbinosun. To add to the week’s bookend honours, the 23-year-old was also named to the Commonwealth Games mid-week.
Sharelle Samuel carried the momentum into the flat 400m, leading a Lions sweep of the podium. The former Harvard and UCLA sprinter — back after a two-year hiatus — edged relay teammate Amy Stieh over the final metres to win in a season-best 54.70. The pair had combined on the Lions 4x400m relay team to win the Canadian Championship just one week earlier. Kathryn Moreland rounded out the podium with a 56.40 effort.
In the field, Maria Okwechime saved her best for last, producing her winning effort on her final jump to edge Canadian heptathlon champion Hannah Blair by five centimetres, claiming the long jump title at 5.79m in just her third competition of the season.
Lions athletes then collected three medals across the remaining events. James Compeau ran to bronze in the men’s 400m in 48.22. Nicolas Belan finished third in the men’s 1500m in 3:58.40, and William McLeish completed the haul with bronze in the men’s 5000m in 15:55.31.
CTFL league titles are determined by virtue of a cumulative points system across three marks — a free mark (from any sanctioned meet), a prelim mark (from a designated CTFL preliminary meet), and a championship mark from the final. This season, league titles went to Telford and Moulongou in the 400m hurdles while David Adeleye took top spot in the 110m hurdles and Courtney Cenac was crowned the victor at 200m.
In a strange feat of superiority, Lauren Gale claimed the women’s 400m league title without setting foot on the track Saturday — she was in Medellín, Colombia competing at the Pan American Athletics Championship with Team Canada. Gale had already done enough though, her league-best 51.24 at the Hurricane Alumni Invitational in Miami in April among the marks that put the title out of reach for her competitors.
Earlier in the day, the Ottawa Summer Twilight #4 meet gave developing athletes a chance to post some notable marks of their own.
Eli Mordel cleared 4.65m in the pole vault — a personal best that ranks second all-time among Lions U20 athletes. Jack Mines also moved up the U20 list, launching the discus out to 48.46m to move into fourth all-time. Back in the pole vault Charlotte Morales cleared 3.10m for a personal best that ranks seventh in Lions U18 history, while Ronan Lebel clocked 4:43.82 for 1500m to jump to fourth all-time in the club’s U14 records.