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Combined event athletes descend on Canadian capital to vie for Area Championship and spot at World Championships

by Internationallinkinbio

By: Pippa Norman

A fierce competition is descending upon the Terry Fox Athletic Facility this weekend, as athletes from North America, Central America and the Caribbean arrive to compete in the NACAC Combined Events Championship.

Hosted by the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club, the two-day championship will feature women competing in the heptathlon and men competing in the decathlon.

Leading the American contingent are former NCAA Champions Ashtin Mahler and Michelle Atherley. The pair are coming off a 2-3 finish at last weekend’s USA Championships in Arkansas and looking to finalize their spot in this summer’s World Championships.

A win this weekend in Ottawa will provide either woman with an automatic World Championship qualification that comes from being an Area Champion. The other will be looking for valuable performance points to improve their world rankings and find their way in to the global top-24 ranking to secure a spot on Team USA for the upcoming championships.

Donning the maple leaf this weekend will be Team Canada athletes Nicole Ostertag, Rostam Turner, Maddison Lawrence and Shawn Beaudoin.

Ostertag, a university senior and member of the Saskatoon Track and Field Club, won silver in the indoor pentathlon at the 2020 U SPORTS championships. More recently, she garnered multiple PBs and a new personal best of 5443 points in the heptathlon at the Bryan Clay Invitational in California.

Coming off a heel injury that put Ostertag out of commission for close to a year, she said she’s excited for the chance to compete this weekend.

“Because I’ve been injured, I haven’t been able to train as much as I’d like,” Ostertag said. “But in the past month or so I’ve been able to do more training and get some technical work in, so I’m excited to put that practice to use in competition.”

Unlike Ostertag, who was named to Team Canada in April, this won’t be Turner’s first time representing Canada on an international stage. A member of the Okanagan Athletics Club, Turner competed for Canada at the 2017 Francophone Games, in addition to winning the heptathlon at the U SPORTS championships that same year. 

Representing Canada this weekend adds another layer of adrenaline to the competition, Turner said.

“It’s super exciting and fun to represent Canada,” Turner said. “I guess [there’s] a little more pressure, but I feel like sometimes it can be a good thing.”

Turner said his goal for the weekend is to take it one event at a time and put up a “big score at the end” for an overall personal best. Turner’s current personal best is 7601 points in decathlon.

Alysha Newman, two-time Olympic pole vaulter, is another Canadian athlete with something to prove this weekend. Newman recently added heptathlon to her skillset after a concussion last year forced her to take a break from pole vault.

“[The plan] wasn’t really to take [heptathlon] up, it was to stay in shape and get ready for when the doctors cleared me to pole vault again,” Newman said. “I happened to just end up falling in love with it and being pretty good at it.”

Heading into her first ever heptathlon competition, Newman said her goal is to finish an entire two days of competition with a score in every event.

“I just want to make sure I can get through the whole thing,” Newman said.

Competition kicks off Saturday morning at 10 a.m. tomorrow and concluded Sunday around 6 p.m.

(Guelph, Canada---07 June 2019) Stephen Evans competing in the 800m at the 2019 Speed River Inferno Track and Field Festival held at Alumni Stadium at the University of Guelph. Copyright image 2019 Sean W Burges / Mundo Sport Images

Robertson, Evans, and Gale have big weekend south of the border

by InternationallinkinbioUniversity

Another stellar weekend of performances for the Lions south of the border this past weekend as Kevin Robertson set a big personal best for the second week in a row, Stephen Evans the best season opener of his career, and Lauren Gale ran the second fastest outdoor 400 of her life. 

Like we said just a week ago, all Kevin Robertson seems to do these days is run faster. The Syracuse junior skimmed more than four seconds off his previous 1500 metre best en route to a sixth place finish at the Virgina Grand Prix on Sunday with a time of 3:46.26.

Sunday’s run is just the latest in a series of personal best performances this season. Beginning all the way back in December of 2021 with a lifetime best in the 300 metres at Cornell, Robertson has run a personal best in every competition since with the exception of the Atlantic Coast Conference Indoor Championship 3000, and that was only because he had obliterated his previous best in the event the meet before. 

On the other side of the continent, Stephen Evans produced the best opening run of his career as he took second at the Payton Jordan Invite 800 metres in California on Friday night. The former USport champion continued the strong running that saw him produce multiple indoor 800 bests as he crossed the line in 1 minute and 48.52 seconds – the second fastest performance of his life. 

Finally, Lauren Gale put on a show at the Fresno State Invitational. The Colorado State senior took top spot in the 400 metres with a time of 51.99 seconds. It was the closest matchup of the season for Gale with second place finisher Tiana Holmes of New Mexico State University finishing 69 hundredths of a second behind the 2021 Olympian. 

The pair will battle again in two weeks time as Gale looks to capture an unprecedented sixth straight Mountain West Conference 400 metre title (indoors and outdoors).

In addition to her individual success, Gale led the Rams 4×400 metre relay to a school record performance of 3:36.42. The mark is just one of six Colorado State records Gale now holds indoors and outdoors.

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Ottawa Lions set to host NACAC Combined Events Championship

by Internationallinkinbio

Ottawa, ON – The Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club are thrilled to be hosting the NACAC Combined Events Championship May 14-15, 2022. The event will bring together some of the best athletes in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean to compete in the two day heptathlon and decathlon events at the Terry Fox Athletic Facility. 

The heptathlon and decathlon consist of seven and ten events respectively contested over two days. The women’s heptathlon begins with the 100 metre hurdles, high jump, shot put, and 200 metres on day one and concludes with long jump, javelin, and 800 metres. The decathlon starts with the 100 metres, long jump, shot put, high jump, and 400 metres and concludes with the 110 metre hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and 1500 metres. 

Supported by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario, this year’s championship event is the latest in a long line of major combined events competitions to be held in Ottawa. Most recently, the Ottawa Lions played host to the Pan American Combined Events Cup in 2018.

“After cancellations the last two seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re really excited to bring international track and field back to Ottawa,” said Ottawa Lions Executive Director and Head Coach Richard Johnston.

“An event like the NACAC Championships is a great opportunity for the athletes competing, but is also a strong motivator for our younger athletes who have the opportunity to see first hand the level of performance required at that next level of competition.” 

This year’s NACAC event will serve as a valuable stepping stone for many athletes looking to qualify for future World Athletics Championships, including this year’s championship set for July in Eugene, OR. 

As an area championship, the event carries the World Athletics GL ranking designation, which will provide athletes up to 110 placing points to help further their world ranking score and qualify for global championships.

The Championship kicks off Saturday, May 14 at 10:00 am with the women in the 100 metre hurdles. The men begin 30 minutes later with the 100 metres.

For more information, visit www.nacacottawa22.com

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Samuel smashes personal best; wins at Auburn

by InternationallinkinbioUniversity

They say good things come to those wait. For Sharelle Samuel the wait had been nearly five years in the making, but after a new personal best at the War Eagle Invitational in Auburn, Alabama on Saturday it was definitely worth it. The Harvard University senior took top spot in the 400 metre hurdles in a time of 58.23 seconds. Samuel’s previous best in the event came back in July of 2017 when she ran to a silver medal at the Commonwealth Youth Games in 59.59 seconds.

In addition to a new personal best, Sharelle’s performance on Saturday also moved her to third on the Club’s all-time list behind former Canadian team members Rosey Edeh and Isabelle Gervais. Furthermore, the economics student is currently ranked 27th in the NCAA and 13th in the East Region. The top 24 athletes in the East Region will qualify for the NCAA East Preliminaries the last weekend of May in Indiana.

Saturday’s victory also extended Samuel’s winning streak in the 400 metre hurdles to four, as she remains undefeated in the event this season.

Samuel also placed sixth in the flat 400 on Saturday, running a collegiate best time of 54.50 seconds.

In Colorado, Lauren Gale made her return to the track after nearly a month away from competition following her appearance at the World Indoor Championships. Despite temperatures hovering around 6 degrees centigrade, the Colorado State senior easily won her 400 metre event on her home track at the Doug Max Invitational in a time of 52.84 seconds – more than two seconds ahead of second place.

Elsewhere in NCAA competition, Tommy Nedow took second place in the discus with a throw of 52.64 metres at a home meet for Southeastern Louisiana University. Nedow was also fourth in the shot put with a best of 15.16 metres. At the Mt. Sac Relays in California, Keira Christie-Galloway placed 16th in the 100 metre hurdles with a time of 13.69 seconds.

Finishing off the long weekend was Josh Cassidy as he rolled to a seventh place finish in Monday’s Boston Marathon. The former Boston champion covered the 26.2 mile course, which winds from the suburb of Hopkinton to famed Boylston Street, in 1 hour, 35 minutes and 2 seconds. Cassidy, who failed to finish Saturday’s 5km event after an issue with his chair, was consistent in his racing Monday – sitting in third through fifth position most of the race. In a post race Instagram story Cassidy likened the final mile to hitting a wall where he was passed by Ireland’s Patrick Monahan and Spain’s Raphael Botello Jimenez – finishing 24 seconds behind the pair.

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Gale takes down another Canadian record

by InternationallinkinbioUniversity

For the fourth meet in a row Lauren Gale has broken a Canadian record; however this time she had a little help. Running lead off on the 4×400 metre relay entry at last weekend’s World Indoor Championships, Gale helped Team Canada to a time of 3 minutes and 31.45 seconds as they placed fourth in their heat in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.

Despite the new Canadian indoor record, the team of Gale, Kyra Constantine, Natassha McDonald, and Sage Watson failed to advance to the final. The previous record of 3:36.03 had been set 22 years prior in Glasgow.

Gale now holds Canadian indoor records at 200 and 400 metres as well as the relay.

Closer to home, the outdoor season was kicking into full swing with a trio of Lions in action for their respective NCAA schools.

Competing at a dual meet in Mobile, Alabama, Tommy Nedow took top spot in the shot put, discus, and hammer throw. The Southeastern Louisiana student won his speciality, the discus, by an impressive five metres as his best throw on the day measured out at 52.35 metres. His winning throws in the shot put and hammer throw measured 16.39 and 51.41 metres respectively.

On home turf in Tempe, Arizona State University runner Keira Christie Galloway placed fifth in the 100 metre hurdles at the Baldy Castillo Invitational. The 22 year old’s time of 13.43 seconds currently ranks as the fourth fastest in the PAC-12 conference.

In Houston, Sharelle Samuel opened her season with victory at the Houston Spring Break Invitational. The Harvard senior took top spot in the 400 metre hurdles with a time of 1:01.64 – nearly three seconds clear of second place.

Louise Stonham Myrtle Beach

Lions start season on right foot in Myrtle Beach

by High SchoolInternationallinkinbio

After a week of putting in work under the bright South Carolina sun, the small contingent of Lions high school athletes attending training camp in Myrtle Beach had the opportunity to put a marker out and see where they were in their training. The results were promising with the Lions posting eight top ten finishes, including a victory by Louise Stonham in the 3000m steeplechase.

Stonham laid on the gas from the gun and ran right to the front of the pack. By the end of the fourth lap, the Arnprior District High School student had opened the gap on the field to two seconds. As Stonham hit the bell, her lead had grown to nearly eight seconds and she would close in her second fastest lap of the day to stop the clock in 11 minutes and 50.87 seconds.

Racing against a field of university students, Stonham appeared unfazed in her debut at the longer steeplechase distance. The 2021 Ontario U18 2000 metre steeplechase champion’s winning time now moves her to eighth in Club history for the event.

A second medal performance came from Maddie Seaby who took the silver over 3000 metres in a time of 10 minutes and 7.95 seconds. Running second the whole race, the grade 12 student found herself six seconds back of Colgate University senior Sophia Manners with two laps to go. However, the Carleton Place District High School student kicked her way home, closing in 2:38.05 to narrow the gap to just three seconds. Seaby’s time is the 12th fastest in Club history at the U18 level.

Falling just short of the podium were Olivia Baggley and Cora McQuinn who each placed fourth in their respective events. Baggley set a new lifetime best at 5,000 metres with an 18:27.74 clocking while McQuinn dropped more than half a second off her 400 metre best with her 57.91 performance.

Other individual top ten performances came from Amelia Van Brabant and Audrey Goddard. In the mile, Van Brabant placed fifth with a 5:10.43 performance while Goddard ran 15.30 for the 100 metre hurdles to place tenth.

Both women featured on relay teams which also placed well. Goddard ran lead off on the 4×200 metre relay with Tatiana Pender, Allison Dewar, and Cora McQuinn as the quartet placed seventh in 1:47.74. Van Brabant ran anchor on the 4×800 metre squad with Maddie Seaby, Ella Lalonde, and Louise Stonham as the ladies posted a time of 10:03.29 to finish sixth.

Full results from the meet are available on our website at https://ottawalions.com/results/2022-results

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Good luck to the Lions in Beijing

by Internationallinkinbio

With the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing this morning, the Ottawa Lions will be cheering extra hard for a quartet of familiar faces to the Club. The group includes bobsledders Cody Sorensen and Mike Evelyn, skeleton racer Mirela Rahneva, and curler Rachel Homan.

Beijing will mark the second Games for former hurdler Cody Sorensen, having competed eight years prior in Sochi. The 35-year old left the sport completely after the Games in Russia, and was working as director of mergers and acquisitions with Welch Capital Partners here in Ottawa before taking some time off this fall to return to the World Cup circuit as part of driver Chris Spring’s sled.

Prior to joining the Canadian bobsled team, Sorensen was an accomplished hurdler with the Club, winning multiple medals at the provincial and national level, including take home a  national university title in the 60 metre hurdles while studying at the University of Guelph.

Sorensen will be joined in Spring’s sled by Mike Evelyn, who is making his Olympic debut. Prior to finding bobsleigh via RBC’s Training Ground competition, Evelyn skated for the hockey team at Dalhousie University, where he earned his degree in electrical engineering. While hockey was his passion growing up, Evelyn was a member of the Club during the 2010 season where he was a provincial finalist in the discus at the under-18 level.

For skeleton racer Mirela Rahneva, this will be her second Games after finishing 12th fourth years ago in Korea. She is coming off a pair of top-5 finishes on the World Cup circuit, including a bronze at her most recent event in St. Moritz. Rahneva’s roots in sport came were formed in the Club. As an 11-year-old, she’d bike 10+ km each way from home near the Nepean Sportsplex to Terry Fox to attend our annual summer camp. According to meet results her focus at the time was in the middle distance events rather than her current specialty in the speed/power domain.

Rachel Homan’s is synonymous with the sport of curling, but few likely knew she interned with the Club during her fourth year of human kinetics studies at the University of Ottawa. Homan, who competed in the women’s curling competition in 2018, is paired up with fellow Ottawa native John Morris in the mixed doubles event this time around, which started play on Wednesday. The pair is already 3-1 in early round robin play and sits in a tie for second.

Also in Beijing is former sprinter/bobsledder Oluseyi Smith. While not competing on the field of play, Smith is competing for a spot on the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes Commission, which will be voted on by athletes throughout the Games.

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Nedow and Gale kick off 2022 season with NCAA victories

by InternationallinkinbioUniversity

The 2022 NCAA indoor season kicked off this weekend with a pair of Lions finding success on the track and in the field. Thrower Tommy Nedow and sprinter Lauren Gale were each victorious in their season debuts.

Nedow, competing for Southeastern Louisiana University, swept both of the throws at the Purple Tiger meet at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge on Friday. The fourth year athletic therapy student kicked off the competition with a new lifetime best of 16.57 metres in the weight throw. The distance was more than a full metre ahead of the second place finisher and added 69 centimetres to his previous best in the event. Nedow took an even more commanding victory in the shot put as he defended his Purple Tiger title from a year ago. His best throw of 16.26 metres outdistanced the competition by nearly three metres.

On the west coast, Olympian Lauren Gale kicked off her season in style with a new indoor personal best over 200 metres. Competing at the Potts Invitational on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, Gale dominated the seventh and final heat of the 200, winning easily in 23.52 seconds. The performance moved her to third on Colorado State University’s all-time list and equaled Canada’s number two all-time U23 performance. However, as the facility in Boulder is an oversized track (300m) the performance could not count for Canadian record purposes.

The NCAA season continues next weekend with Gale’s CSU Rams headed to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, while we may see hurdler Keira Christie-Galloway open her season for the Arizona State Sun Devils at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

OTTAWA, ON -- 05 July 2018: Josh Cassidy racing in the para wheelchair 1500m at the 2018 Athletics Canada National Track and Field Championships held at the Terry Fox Athletics Facility in Ottawa, Canada. (Photo by Sean Burges / Mundo Sport Images).

Cassidy fourth at New York City Marathon

by InternationallinkinbioLocal

For Josh Cassidy, competing in last Saturday’s New York City Marathon just 27 days after placing fifth at the Boston Marathon would normally not be a newsworthy fact. He is after all, a man has regularly raced Boston on a Monday in April, hopped a plane and contested the London Marathon just six days later. However, nine days following Boston, Cassidy’s partner Laiken gave birth to son Henrik – leaving Cassidy without a full night’s sleep for three weeks heading into one of the more difficult marathon courses on the circuit.

Despite the lack of sleep, and time off training during that time, Cassidy pulled off his highest ever finish in New York, placing fourth in 1 hour 40 minutes and 38 seconds.

“Expectations low, motivation high, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go,” was how Cassidy described his mindset heading into the race. The focus was a top-6 finish to be in the prize money.

As he reached the 1-mile mark atop the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn, Cassidy had already settled into fourth, between two packs. The following 25 miles would become a game of cat and mouse with American Daniel Romanchuk for bronze.

Cassidy held a ten second advantage at the mid way point, but Romanchuk was able to overtake him by the 25 km mark. Cassidy would narrow the gap to two seconds at the 20 mile marker, before hitting a wall in the final kilometres to hold on to fourth.

“Pretty emotional at the end, after an exhausting few weeks, tough marathon, a lot to overcome mentally and physically,” wrote Cassidy on Instagram this week. “Super proud of this one, and great way to end the season.”

In a road race closer to home, Nic Roberts took home top spot in The Great Big Cookie Run 5km last Sunday. Roberts crossed the line in a time of 15 minutes and 57.0 seconds, to finish nine seconds up on second place.

On the women’s side, Club President Jennifer Dumoulin finished in 22:26.0 to place 18th.

Copyright Brian Rouble/Shuttered Moments

Cassidy fifth at Boston Marathon; XC competes in Sherbrooke

by InternationallinkinbioUniversity

The world’s oldest marathon race returned to the streets of Boston Monday morning with a familiar face near the top of the leader board. Canadian record holder Joshua Cassidy placed fifth with a time of 1:28:56 – his fastest marathon since the 2017 edition of Boston.

Traditionally held on Patriots Day, the third Monday in April, the 125th edition of the BAA Boston Marathon was pushed to the October date as a result of COVID restrictions following its cancellation in 2020.

Monday’s event almost didn’t happen for Cassidy, who almost pulled out of the event in September after losing two and a half weeks of training due to a sinus infection. Despite the break, the three time Paralympian held tight to the front of the pack throughout the race. Cassidy battled for third with South African Ernst Van Dyk all the way up Heartbreak Hill, a 600 metre ascent between the 32 and 34 kilometre marks. Continuing the battle towards the finish, Van Dyk narrowly pulled away, while Cassidy nipped at the line by American Aaron Pike, who finish one second ahead.

Cassidy, who is also awaiting the birth of his first child with partner Laiken appeared content with the result, writing on Instagram “not bad, needed a bit more quality training, but so happy to be out there, happy to be home again, and grateful for everyone with the Boston Marathon team.”

Back in Canada, a small collection of Lion, Gee-Gees, and Ravens took part in the the Vert et Or Invitation cross country race on the campus of the University of Sherbrooke on Sunday. Nico Pedersen was the winner of the open men’s eight kilometre race with a time of 25 minutes and 49.4 seconds. Nathan Meraw of the Gee-Gees was the top male in the university section, placing 43rd in 27:58.8. The top female honour went to Kylee Fowler, a first year student with the Gee-Gees, who placed 42nd in 34:02.3. Carleton’s Sophy Wood was the top Raven in 46th.

Complete results from the Vert et Or Invitation can be found on the FQA website.