Copyright Sean Burges/Mundo Sport Images

Gale sets 200 metre record at Mountain West Championships

by linkinbioUniversity

Conference championship weekend south of the border has gotten off to a blazing start for Lauren Gale. The Colorado State junior laid down a blistering time of 23.15 seconds to take second place in her 200 metre semi-final. The time eclipses Farah Jacques Club record of 23.21 seconds set five years ago and also betters Ashley Purnell’s Club Under 23 mark of 23.28 seconds set at the 2002 World U20 Championships. Gale’s also broke the Colorado State record with her performance.

Running out of lane six, in the second of three semi-final heats, Gale shot out of the blocks, overtaking the two runners to her outside runners by the time they hit 60 metres. As she entered the straight-away, University of Nevada Las Vegas senior Cassondra Hall had a couple metres on Gale. Hall would hold to victory with Gale narrowing the gap as the pair hit the line.

In Gale’s other semi-final run, the 400 metres, the contest wasn’t remotely as close. As a three time conference champion indoors and outdoors as well as holding the top time in the conference, Gale’s victory was not a surprise. However, the authority with which she dominated the race was impressive. Running in lane seven, she made up the stagger within 15 steps and was nearly 15 metres clear of the field at the 150 metre mark. After hitting the 200 metre mark in 24.6 seconds, she would cross the line in 52.73, more than two and a half seconds up on second place.

Gale will have a busy final day with the finals of both the 200 (11:45pm eastern) and 400 (10:10pm eastern), but she is also slated to run on both the 4×100 and 4×400 metre relays for the Rams. You can watch all the action live on Mountain West TV.

At the Southland Conference Championships in Humble, Texas Tommy Nedow posted a top five performance in the hammer throw to garner four valuable points for his Southeastern Louisiana Lions. The Brockville native whipped the 16 pound hammer out to 54.61 metres Friday, just shy of his personal best set two weeks ago. Nedow will be back in action Saturday when he competes in the shot put where he will no doubt be looking repeat his victory from the indoor championship. He’ll wrap up his weekend with the discus throw Sunday.

Thursday night at the Atlantic Coast Conference championship in Raleigh, North Carolina, Syracuse sophomore Kevin Robertson ran a personal best 3:50.60 to finish 27th overall. Robertson, who focused on the steeplechase in high school, has made great strides in the 1500 metres this season, dropping nearly six seconds from his best.

 

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President’s Corner for May 2021 – with Jennifer Dumoulin

by adminlinkinbio

Welcome to the monthly President’s Corner update!

The monthly President’s Corner is an opportunity to see what’s happening within the Club, to hear about what our Board of Directors is working on, and to learn about what we discuss at our monthly meetings.

What happened at our last Board meeting?

The Ottawa Lions Board of Directors met on Monday, May 3rd, 2021 over Zoom. Richard Johnston kicked off the meeting by discussing the possibility of hosting meets if restrictions are eased later this month. We are hoping for good news and are eager to see some High Performance and Twilight meets at Terry Fox this summer and early fall!

Richard and Jessica have also been hard at work applying to various grants. We are happy to report that we have grants coming in from Young Canada Works, Canada Summer Jobs, and the Renewable Recreation Grant, among others.

Jennifer D. also announced that our Club has signed a one-year contract with uOttawa Varsity Athletics for the upcoming 2021-2022 season. This marks an important step in reinforcing our ongoing relationship with the University of Ottawa.

What are our Champions up to?

We presented our new strategic initiative last month and our Champions are already off to an exciting start.

  • Working with Richard, Andrew and Kirk – our Diversity and Inclusion Champions – have discussed the possibility of involvement with the North American Indigenous Games.
  • The Alumni Relations Champions, Noah and Zeena, are looking forward to reconnecting with former Lions and hearing how they may want to get more involved with our Club.

All of our Champions are looking forward to continuing working with you to achieve our Club’s vision to be a leader in the community as well as in the realm of athletics and to be the most inclusive, comprehensive and successful Track & Field club in Canada.

See you next month!

We hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and healthy. Check out our club’s Strava feed to see how our members are staying active and keeping up with their workouts!

Jennifer Dumoulin

President, Board of Directors
Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club
president@ottawalions.com

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

(Montreal, Canada---28 July 1995) From right to left, Sonya Paquette, Lesley Tashlin, and Keturah Anderson at the 1995 Canadian National Track and Field Championships. Photo 1995 Copyright Sean Burges / Mundo Sport Images.

Students pushing to honour Lesley Tashlin in Haliburton

by linkinbioLocalNational

The word “champion” can mean different things, depending on context. Lesley Tashlin earned the title by virtue of her winning the 100-metre hurdlers at the 1995 Canadian Track & Field Championships. Now a new generation has championed a new campaign to recognize her, and her brother’s, career achievements.

The students at J. Douglas Hodgson Elementary School in Haliburton, Ont., are used to short trivia and facts with their morning announcements. On one occasion, those announcements touched on the athletic achievements of 1996 Olympic hurdler Lesley Tashlin and her younger brother, CFL defensive back Taly Williams. When the school’s Grade 7/8 French Immersion class were assigned to write a biography, one student chose the sporty siblings.

After researching their careers, the students could not believe that they hadn’t heard of two such accomplished local athletes and came up with a plan. They have started a campaign to have Tashlin and Williams represented with murals on the walls of the A.J. LaRue Arena in Haliburton, which already hosts murals of five other local sport stars.

“I’m naturally quiet, so this is a lot for me to take in,” said Tashlin. “At first, I was like ‘Go for it!’ and it has become so much more than I expected. The kids are great. If it was me, I might have given up the fight at the first sign of trouble, so their dedication is impressive.”

Continue read at Athletics.ca

(Montreal, Canada---26 July 2019) Melissa Bishop-Nriagu running in the 800m semi-finals at 2019 Canadian Track and Field Championships at the Claude Robillard Sports Centre in Montreal. 2019 Copyright Sean Burges / Mundo Sport Images.

Bishop-Nriagu hits standard; Nedow sets new discus best

by InternationallinkinbioNationalUniversity

A big weekend on the track and in the field produced a number of marks to celebrate for the Lions, highlighted by Melissa Bishop-Nriagu hitting the Olympic standard in the 800 metres and Tommy Nedow adding nearly two metres to his discus best.

After a disappointing race in Oregon two weeks prior, Melissa Bishop-Nriagu stepped onto the track in Chula Vista, California Sunday aiming to do one thing that had eluded her since stepping away three years ago to give birth to daughter Corinne – break two minutes for 800 metres. Beneath the two minute barrier was also the Olympic standard of 1:59.50 – a necessary step on the path to returning to the Olympic final and running for a medal. Bishop-Nriagu smashed both barriers, stopping the clock in a time of one minute and 59.04 seconds on her way to victory.

Pacing Sunday night’s race was 2019 World 1500 metre finalist Nikki Hiltz, who carried the pack through 600 metres in a speedy 1:27. From there, Bishop-Nriagu told CBC Sports, “it was about focusing on finishing strong and getting to that line in under 1:59.50.” Despite bettering the standard, the Eganville native’s ticket to Tokyo hasn’t been printed yet. “We still have a (potential) National Championship coming up where I will need to qualify. The depth in our women’s 800m in Canada is as strong as ever and we can only send three spots. This is not a given, this has to be worked for still,” she told followers on Instagram.
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Competing in a final tune up meet ahead of the Southland Conference Championships, scheduled for May 14-16, Tommy Nedow unleashed some big throws to move him to the top of the conference rankings. The Brockville native had a big break through in his primary event, the discus, whirling the two kilogram disc out to 53.74 metres to place second. Nedow’s throw added nearly two metres to his previous best set in 2019. Nedow also chalked up a personal best in the hammer throw, adding four metres to his previous best to finish third with 54.87 metres. He rounded out the competition of a 16.26 metre heave to place third in the shot put.

At the University of Kansas, Lauren Gale continued her winning ways in the 400 metres, crossing in 53.84 seconds. The Colorado State University junior battled some unusually strong winds, registering peaks of 8.1 metres per second in the adjacent triple jump, to stay undefeated in the one lap race this outdoor season.  She will look to continue the streak at the Mountain West Championships May 14-16, where she will also be looking to pick up her fourth conference 400 metre title in as many tries.

In other competitions, Stephen Evans placed fifth over 800 metres at the Kansas City Qualifier in 1:50.11. Down in Louisiana, Farah Jacques took ninth in the 100 metres hurdles at the LSU Alumni Invite with a 13.90 second clocking. Out west, fellow hurdler Keira Christie-Galloway finished fourth at the Desert Heat Classic in Tucson, Arizona with a time of 13.75 seconds.

 

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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.