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President’s Corner with Jennifer Dumoulin

by adminlinkinbio

What’s going on? Welcome to the President’s Corner!

We are excited to announce that every month, we will be doing a President’s Corner to give members a chance to see what’s happening within the Club, especially given that we aren’t able to meet up at the track for regular workouts right now.

Our board is working alongside you on our mission of providing all members with a positive, inclusive Track & Field experience, free from harassment and discrimination, that nurtures and inspires athletic performance and excellence and raises the profile and prestige of the sport of Track & Field in the National Capital Region and beyond.

These summaries will highlight what our Board of Directors is working on and will provide an update on what we discuss at our monthly meetings.

Who’s on our Board of Directors?

Our Board is comprised of a diverse group of volunteers, with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Click here to see a list of our current Board members, which includes our Athletes and Coaches Representatives.

Our Last Board Meeting

The Ottawa Lions Board of Directors met on Monday, April 12th, 2021 over Zoom. During our Board meetings, our Executive Director, President, and Treasurer always provide an update on how our Club is doing and what we can anticipate in the coming weeks and months. This month, our Executive Director and Head Coach Richard Johnston highlighted the work being done during the current stay-at-home order, including applying for grants and government support, and setting up a variety of possible competition schedules to adapt to depending on restrictions we will face in the coming weeks and months. You can read more about Richard’s latest update here.

In addition, last month, our President, Jennifer Dumoulin, and Richard met with uOttawa Varsity Athletics to discuss our new contract and valuable ongoing relationship.

Our New Strategic Planning Initiative

Over the past couple of Board meetings, we’ve been working on developing a new strategic planning initiative and we are excited to announce that our Board members will have seven unique portfolios (presented in alphabetical order) with their own sets of objectives and initiatives to work towards.

Alumni Relations Champions – Noah Houlton and Zeena Rashid: Noah and Zeena will be working closely with our Club staff to strengthen our network of alumni, promoting better information-sharing and fostering increased alumni involvement with Club activities.

Bilingualism Champion – Gordon Cavé: As Bilingualism Champion, Gordon is going to focus on raising the profile of French within our Club. One of the initiatives he’ll be working towards is translating our Club’s website and developing a process for issuing bilingual press releases.

Board 101 Champion – Dave Farthing: Dave is going to help formalize our Board’s operations by developing resources for officers, directors and representatives.

Budget Champion – Lynn Thompson: Lynn will continue her outstanding work as Treasurer while championing the development of a formal budgeting cycle and budget resources.

By-law Champion – Jenn Dumoulin: As By-law Champion, Jenn is going to work on bringing our Club’s by-laws up-to-date with the current landscape while ensuring that they’re free of errors (yep, that includes spelling and grammar mistakes).

Charity Champions – Jen Perrault and James Bruce: Jen and James, working with our Director-at-Large Eleanor Fast, are going to examine setting up a charitable foundation to streamline donations to our club, its athletes, and coaches.

Diversity and Inclusivity Champions – Andrew Heffernan and Kirk Dillabaugh: As Diversity and Inclusivity Champions, with their feet on the ground as our Athletes’ and Coaches’ Representatives respectively, Andrew and Kirk will focus on the promotion and realization of our Club’s vision to be the most inclusive, comprehensive, and successful Track and Field club in Canada

Stay tuned for updates on the important work of our Champions!

See you next month!

Thanks for reading our inaugural President’s Corner update. As always, your feedback and input on our Club is welcome and encouraged as we work towards our vision to be a leader in the community as well as in the realm of athletics; and be the most inclusive, comprehensive and successful Track & Field club in Canada. Please feel free to reach out by emailing me at president@ottawalions.com

Stay safe and stay active,

 

Jennifer Dumoulin
President, Board of Directors
Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club

(prepared jointly with Zeena Rashid, Secretary, Ottawa Lions Board of Directors)

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Bishop-Nriagu finishes fourth at Oregon Relays

by InternationallinkinbioUniversity

What was intended to be a fast race, with runners aiming for the Olympic standard of 1:59.50, quickly turned into a tactical effort Saturday in the 800 metres at the Oregon Relays Grand Prix Event. It wasn’t the race Melissa Bishop-Nriagu was hoping for, but what she got was a fourth place finish, three tenths behind 2019 world silver medalist Raevyn Rogers, in two minutes and 4.18 seconds. With the mercury hovering around 14 degrees celsius and the rain falling down on the brand new Hayward Field, the field was quite content to let the pace setter run away from as they hit the bell in 62.6 seconds. As the medalists began to pull slightly ahead of Bishop-Nriagu in the final 200 metres, the Canadian record holder was not able to match their surge.

“I’m fuming after that display of a race,” she posted to Instagram afterwards. Her takeaway from Saturday’s effort boiled down to one word – trust. “I could list a handful of thing that I trust in this sport and at the top of the list is me. I have to trust me.”

At the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa it was a mixed bag for the brothers Tommy and Tim Nedow. Tommy, the younger of the two competed, recorded a seasonal best in the discus by hurling  the two kilogram platter out to 51.06 metres – just missing out on the final by one spot.  However, the shot put was not as kind to either of the Nedow men as they each failed to record a mark – Tommy in Friday’s university section and Tim in Saturday’s invitational section.

Elsewhere, sprint hurdler Keira Christie-Galloway placed fourth at a race in Phoenix, Arizona while Stephen Evans finished fifth in Atlanta. Christie-Galloway, a junior at Arizona State University, stopped the clock at 13.86 seconds in her first race back from injury while Evans clocked in at one minute and 52.48 seconds for 800 metres.

1975 EOL Banquet

First Club practice held 47 years ago today

by linkinbioLocal

Like many of you, I have spent a fair amount of time cooped up in the house since the pandemic began. I’ve spent some of my time revamping sections of the website, making some big updates to Club stats (more on that to come in the next few weeks), and even complied a few top ten lists. While compiling the lists I began to research a fair bit about the Club’s history and one day, last fall, came across a pair of articles describing the first days of the East Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club, as the Club was known as for the first 15 plus years of its existence.

On April 25, 1974 the East Ottawa Lions held their first practice at the old Canadian Forces Base Rockcliffe track. Scheduled for 6:15pm that Thursday night, under the leadership of head coach Bob Staveley, practice began for “boys  age 12 and up and girls 11 years of age or over” according to an article in The Ottawa Journal. Given the Club’s original sponsorship by the East Ottawa Lions Club, original membership in the Club was restricted to “athletes living within the boundaries north of the Queensway and east of the Rideau River.”

Staveley, who had long believed there had been a need for a second track and field club in the city, established the Lions after having served as the Head Coach of the Ottawa Kinsmen Harriers Track and Field Club for five years. According to The Journal, the original coaches included Owen Froggett, who would help Staveley oversee the field events. Ken Parker, who later founded the Ottawa Athletic Club Racing Team, was the Club’s original distance coach. He was assisted by Rae Ellen Desloges. The sprinters were coached by Dick Cardill, previously of the the Harriers, and his assistant – Greg Moses of Almonte.

The original Board of Directors was led by president Major Angus Read, with Staveley serving as vice-president. Yvon Lanctin was the original treasuer and Froggett the secretary with Paul Moxon sitting as a member at large.

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Smith and Makinde receive Game Plan Scholarships

by linkinbioNational

Among the nine Team Canada athletes to be awarded Game Plan Scholarships to build their business skills were two familiar names to the Lions pride. Two time Olympians Oluseyi Smith and Oluwasegun Makinde will be returning to the classroom over the coming months as they further their education at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University.

Smith, just one of 12 athletes to represent Canada at the Winter and Summer Olympics, will enroll in the Executive MBA Americas – a 17-month program leading to Master of Business Administration degrees from both Queen’s University and Cornell University. Smith qualified for his first Olympic Games in 2012, representing Canada in the 4×100 metre relay in London. After failing to qualify for the Games in Rio, Smith took his speed and power from the rubber tracks of athletics to the icy tracks of bobsleigh. As a member of Justin Kripps four-man crew, Smith helped push Canada to a sixth place finish at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

A professional engineer, Smith, received his bachelor and masters degrees in electrical engineering from Loughborough University in the United Kingdowm and had been working for AltaLink in Calgary for six years before returning home to Ottawa last spring to work as a distribution engineer for Hydro Ottawa. In addition to his professional activities, Smith also served on the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Board of Directors, serving as Chair of the COC’s Athlete Commission, and is currently a Young Leader with the International Olympic Committee.

Makinde, a long standing member of Canada’s 4×100 metre relay program was part of both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams. The 29 year old Makinde will be pursuing his Master of Management Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Smith School of Business – a 12 month program designed for those who will start, grow, or drive new ventures whether in a start up or inside a corporation. Makinde, who graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Marketing from the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management in 2014, has become an accomplished public speaker alongside his athletic pursuits including speaking at this year’s McMaster University TEDx Talk. In addition to his public speaking duties, Makinde currently hosts two podcasts and volunteers as a member of Athletics Canada’s Athlete Council and the Diversity & Equity Advisory Committee of AthletesCAN.

The Smith School of Business scholarship program is one component of the COC’s Game Plan, Canada’s total athlete wellness program, helping athletes plan for success beyond sport. This new cohort of successful applicants will join the network of over 130 elite Canadian athletes who have been awarded academic scholarships since the program began in 2016

 

 

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Nedow hits Olympic Standard; Gale sets new bests

by InternationallinkinbioNationalUniversity

Just under two years ago, shot putter Tim Nedow heaved a 16 pound iron ball beyond the Olympic Qualifying standard of 21.10 metres at a competition in California. Unfortunately for the DePaul University graduate, the massive throw came 11 days before the start of the qualification period for the Tokyo games. Nedow rectified the situation this past Saturday afternoon at a competition in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania where he once again surpassed the Olympic Standard with his winning throw of 21.11 metres. The effort all but secures a spot for the 2019 World finalist to compete in Japan this August.

Another athlete vying for a spot in Tokyo this summer is sprinter Lauren Gale. The Colorado State University junior has been setting lifetime bests all over the track this season, picking up another two this past Saturday. Competing at the Colorado University Invitational in Boulder, Gale set new bests in both the 100 and 200 metre events en-route to victory. Gale led a Colorado State sweep of the 100 metre medals with her winning time of 11.67 seconds besting her previous best set back in 2018 by over four tenths of a second. Similarly, Gale trimmed nearly four tenths off her outdoor best over 200 metres with a winning time of 23.61 seconds. Both marks come on the heel of Gale’s school record performance of 52.24 seconds last week over 400 metres Her recent marks now put the 21 year old at #5, #4, and #2 in Club history for the 100, 200, and 400 metres respectively.

Also moving up in the Club’s all-time rankings was decathlete Ryan Thomsen who won the Hillsdale Invitational in Michigan with a score of 6486 points – moving to seventh in Club history. With top marks in both the long jump and shot put, Thomsen finished among the top three in nine of the ten events. For his efforts, Thomsen was named the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Track athlete of the week and provisionally qualified for the NCAA Division II Championships.

Rounding out the weekend’s top performances was Tommy Nedow who captured gold in the discus and silver in the shot put at the Strawberry Relays in Louisiana. The Southeastern Louisiana University student’s best throws measured 50.33 metres in the discus and 16.20 metres in the shot put.

Farah Jacques OLY 4x1 heats2

Jacques named to World Relays 4×100 metre team

by Internationallinkinbio

Among the 24 athletes named to represent Canada at next month’s World Relays event in Chorzow, Poland was the familiar Farah Jacques. The 31-year old Jacques has been a mainstay in the relay program over the past five years. The event at Silesian Stadium May 1st and 2nd will mark the third straight appearance at the global relay championship for Jacques, who ran lead off for the 4×100 metre relay team at the 2017 event in Nassau, Bahamas and 2019 event in Yokohama, Japan. Jacques and the rest of Team Canada will prepare for the World Relays with a training camp on the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge before travelling to Europe.

Coach Glenroy Gilbert will serve as head coach for Canada at the World Relays. Lion alums Alicia Brown (4x400m/Mixed 4x400m) and Shyvonne Roxborough (4x100m alternate) were also named to the team.

To read the full release from Athletics Canada, please click here.

(Ottawa, Canada---12 September 2020) Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club Head Coach Richard Johnston. Copyright 2020 Sean Burges / Mundo Sport Images

April Update from Richard Johnston

by adminCOVIDlinkinbio

Dear members,

Please take a quick read over the following message regarding the impacts of the most recent provincial announcement.

 

On Thursday, April 1st, Premier Doug Ford announced that as of 12:01am Saturday, April 3rd the province will go into a month long “shutdown”. While the City of Ottawa interprets the provincial measures to their own venues, the Terry Fox Athletic Facility will be closed until further notice. This will unfortunately result in on official pause to our spring/summer outdoor programs.

Notes on Programs:

The final early spring practice scheduled on Saturday April 3rd will be cancelled due to the facility closure.

The start of our competitive spring/summer programs that were scheduled for April 7th will be postponed until further notice.

The start of our spring Aspire, Foundation and Youth programs that were scheduled on April 19th will be postponed until further notice.

We will continue to evaluate the scenario before adjusting our events scheduled in May (Twilight series and Ottawa High Performance Weekend).

I am requesting all registrants to be patient until we have complete details before any bombardment of questions. We will issue a notice to all spring/summer programs on how the changes affect the times, prices and the layout of practices.

This update is far from what we were expecting to share as we begin the spring months. We are all frustrated with the roller coaster of lockdowns, shutdowns and stay at home orders. In fact, that is probably a mellow emotion to what most of us feel has played out since March of 2020. I must commend our members for the diligence and commitment displayed over the past 13 months. The drive is still there and unlike last summer, we have the template in place to return all programs at the appropriate time. Let’s not sleep on this pause but carry that drive over so that when we are back it will be a minor blip in training.

 

Take care and Happy Easter,

 

Richard Johnston

Executive Director
Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club

(Guelph, Canada---07 June 2019) Melissa Bishop-Nriagu competing in the 800m at the 2019 Speed River Inferno Track and Field Festival held at Alumni Stadium at the University of Guelph. This race was Bishop-Nriagu's first 800m after a two year break to have a baby. Copyright image 2019 Sean W Burges / Mundo Sport Images

Lions kick off outdoor season with record and personal bests

by linkinbioNationalUniversity

It’s not often we have athletes lacing up their shoes for outdoor competition in the second week of March, but these times are far from normal. Melissa Bishop-Nriagu and Tommy Nedow each put their opportunity to good use, walking away with personal best performances on the day.

For Bishop-Nriagu, Saturday night’s season debut at 1500 metres was the first competitive step to finding her way on to her third Olympic team, and it was a very good step. The Eganville native crossed the line in four minutes and 9.36 seconds to finish second at the Vic City Elite event behind Lucia Stafford’s 4:06.86. The time equaled Bishop-Nriagu’s own Club record set in 2019. The former world medalist, who temporarily moved to Victoria earlier this year to train with coach Trent Stellingwerf, indicated after the reace she had been bothered by an achy Achilles.

“But I feel good now. Things are going well,”  she told the Victoria Times-Columnist.

For thrower Tommy Nedow, his fourth place finish in the shot put at Friday’s South Alabama Invite in Mobile was second straight personal best effort for the Southeastern Louisiana junior. Nedow’s best mark of 16.93 metres was a single centimetre better than the distance he threw to capture the Southland Conference indoor title two weeks prior. The Brockville native showed strong form in the discus, taking second place with a heave of 51.02 metres.

Nedow’s older brother Tim opened up his 2021 season at the Athletics Ontario High Performance Meet at York University. The 2019 world finalist had a very consistent effort in the shot put, with all his throws landing within 15 centimetres of each other. Nedow’s winning mark of 20.12 metres came on his six and final throw.

 

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Back on track – Lions athletes return to formal practices

by COVIDHigh SchoollinkinbioLocal

Incredible. It was all the words Foundation and Aspire program director Zach Quevillon needed to express his feelings about being back at practice.

After two months of lockdown, where treadmills, Zoom workouts, and other at home training became the norm, the Lions returned to practice Saturday morning at the spacious Sooner Megadome located at École secondaire catholique Paul-Desmarais in Stittsville. Saturday’s practice, a soft opening to March’s full return to programming at three separate locations across the city, included approximately 35 athletes who ran, hurdled, and bounded across the spacious turf field.

With nearly all members of the Aspire Program back training Saturday morning, coaches Quevillon and Connor Dobson led the high school students through their paces as they prepare for a competitive season that will be void of an OFSAA Championship for the second straight season. Quevillon plans to ease the athletes back into the swing of things over the next four months as the athletes prepare to head back outdoors in April. “It was evident that everybody’s been working really hard on their time away,” said the fifth year coach. “Virtual workouts were a success and we are at a starting point that is a lot further down the road than I was expecting having not seen [the athletes] in two plus months.”

Hurdler Luca Nicoletti said he found at home training to be more static and was happy to be back at practice with the whole team. After two months of treadmill running and drills at home, “it felt great to get back to running at a high speed,” said the 2019 Legion National silver medalist. Nicoletti says his focus this summer is returning to Legion Nationals, if the event does take place.

While the treadmill was go to for a number of athletes during lockdown, coach Normand Seguin notes the transfer of mechanics from the treadmill to the track takes some time. “Surprisingly [the athletes] found they are weak in the quads. When they pushed they realized they have to push, so they were slower,” said Seguin of the re-adjustment to running on a stationary surface. Nonetheless, the long time coach was pleased with where the athletes were, “I can tell they are very fit, they just need a little bit more exposure.”

Lions athletes will continue to get the necessary training exposure throughout March with sessions taking place at the Sooner Megadome, Aberdeen Pavilion, and Carp’s Oz Dome. For more information about our programs, please consult our website.

 

(Montreal, Canada---27 July 2019) Lauren Gale pulls away in the home straight to win the U20 400m at 2019 Canadian Track and Field Championships at the Claude Robillard Sports Centre in Montreal. 2019 Copyright Sean Burges / Mundo Sport Images.

Gale breaks own record in Iowa

by linkinbioUniversity

The sport of athletics is all about pushing through barriers, whether that be distance or time. For Lauren Gale, her performance at last weekend’s Iowa State Classic was just another example of breaking through a time barrier. The Colorado State University 400 metre specialist broke the 53 second barrier indoors for the first time, running a blistering 52.83. The performance shaved off over six tenths of a second from the previous school mark she set while winning last year’s Mountain West Conference Championship.

Gale’s recent efforts in practice had indicated something good was ready happen after a new personal best in her flying 20 metre run a 37.5 second clocking for 300 metres. She also indicated she’s hit a few personal bests in the weight room as well, which helped culminate in the new indoor best.

While Gale is happy to be training and competing, she has had to shift the focus of her indoor season this year when the conference cancelled this season’s indoor championship last fall. “Without Mountain West, I have been going for times,” said Gale of her adjustment. “It’s me versus the clock now.” It seems to be a battle the third year student is winning as she also set a new best over 200 metres – winning in 23.88 seconds.

The seven time Colorado State High School champion has had to adjust to life under COVID, including avoiding its wrath as it swept through her team earlier this season. COVID has also brought along new protocols such as smaller training groups, mask wearing during practice and twice a week COVID testing – Gale insists the nasal swab is not fun. Nonetheless, she remains positive about the progress. “We are pushing through and I’m still working hard towards my goals. It’s been a little crazy, but manageable.”

Gale’s goals have been consistent through the year – qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships in June at the University of Oregon and then run at the Olympic Trials in Montreal and qualify to represent Canada in Tokyo. This past weekend’s performance hasn’t altered her focus, but has instilled more confidence in herself that she can achieve those goals.

“I really did surprise myself at how fast I ran. Now I’ve got some faster times I want to hit and big meets to qualify for,” explained Gale, who holds an outdoor best of 52.68 seconds.  “It only makes me want to push harder to be the best I can.”