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It was a good morning for Sharelle Samuel and her Team Canada 4×400 metre relay teammates on the penultimate day of competition at the 14th IAAF World U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland as the quartet handily advanced to tomorrow’s final.
Running third, Samuel helped her Canadian team to a second place finish in semi-final number two, half a second behind the quartet from Australia. Finishing in a seasonal best of 3:36.14, Canada posted the sixth fastest time in qualifying and will race out of lane eight in the tomorrow’s final.
In the 100m hurdles semi-final, Keira Christie-Galloway’s race was almost over before it started when the field was recalled for an apparent false start. While the replays appeared to indicate movements in the lanes to her outside, it was Keira’s lane showing a reaction time of 0.999 seconds, one one-thousandth of a second below the legal limit.
Thankfully for Kristie-Galloway, she was only shown a yellow card and was able to continue the race, where she placed fifth in her heat with a time of 13.71 seconds. She would finish 17th overall, a marked improvement over her placing from two years ago in Bydgoscz, Poland. Keira was also the lead off runner for Canada’s 4×100 metre relay entry on Friday which finished fifth in their heat in 45.68 seconds, but failed to advance.
Lauren Gale made her debut at a global championship Friday morning in the 200 metres. The Colorado State University bound runner, failed to replicate the form she showed in winning the Colorado 4A state championship in May, finishing seventh in her heat with a time of 24.78 seconds. She did not advance.
 

Just four days ago, after a third place finish in the Utica Boilermarker 15k, Joshua Cassidy said, “Felt good, happy with my performance but some things to work on.” Clearly, the two time Paralympian found the quick fix as he captured gold in the wheelchair 1500m last night at the Haute Performance Nationale meet in Quebec City.
Competing in a field reminiscent of last Thursday’s national final, Cassidy posted his best performance since May 2012, rolling to victory in two minutes 55.98 seconds. It was a tight battle for the victory, with Alexandre Dupont just three tenths of a second behind in second place.
To highlight the quality of the performances Friday night, Cassidy moves to second on the global list, with Dupont right behind him. Even third place finisher Tristan Smytg now ranks fifth in the world.
Friday night’s event marked the culmination of a busy ten days in athletics for Cassidy. It’s included a 10 kilometre race in Atlanta, a 15 kilometre race in New York state and of course his 1500 metre races in both Ontario and Quebec. However, for gentleman who routinely kicks off his racing season with back to back marathons on two different continents, it’s almost certain he still as a little something left in the tank.

With a trip to a global final on the line today for Maeliss Trapeau and Sharelle Samuel, both athletes fell short of advancing despite registering near personal best performances.
Maeliss Trapeau, first on the track in the 800m semi-final, crossed the line for the second best performance of her life – two minutes 5.35 seconds. The University of Ottawa student was methodical in performance, sitting just off the leaders through 400 metres, hitting the bell in 61 seconds.
Trapeau made the crucial push to 600 metres, finding herself in third place as they went through in 1:33. However, in the final straight, the field showed their class, pulling away with the winner crossing in 2:03.19. Trapeau finished 14th overall in the competition.
Running blind out in lane eight, Sharelle Samuel kept herself in the race from the gun before finishing in near personal best time of 53.68 seconds. The Harvard bound Samuel got out to a quick start, creating distance between herself and Stella Wonruku of Uganda to her inside and held that gap through the line. However, with world number one, Hima Das of India leading the charge down the homestretch, Samuel would fall back to fifth in the heat. She would end up finishing 12th overall.
While her individual events have concluded, it is expected that Samuel will figure prominently in Canada’s 4×400 metre relay entry later in the competition. She will be joined in the relay pool by club mate Lauren Gale, who will contest the 200 metre heats beginning Friday. Canada is the defending bronze medalist in the event and will be looking to equal or better the result with veterans Ashlan Best and Xarhia Santiago returning to the team.
Also competing Friday is Canadian Junior record holder in the 100 metre hurdles, Keira Christie-Galloway. The University of Ottawa student will be looking to improve upon her semi-final appearance from two years ago in Bydgoscz, Poland.

The 17th edition of the IAAF World U20 Championships got off to a fantastic start for the Lions on Tuesday with both Maeliss Trapeau and Sharelle Samuel advancing out of their respective heats and on to the semi-finals.
The journey to Tampere, Finland was not the most straightforward for Trapeau, but she showed no ill effects, cruising through the line in third place to automatically advance. Racing in one of the faster heats, Trapeau’s time of two minutes 5.72 seconds ranked her sixth fastest on the day. She will now race in the semi-finals on Wednesday at 10:10am Eastern.
Trapeau, who had originally intended to compete for Canada at these Championships is competing under the red, white and blue of her native France. While Trapeau holds dual citizenship, she was born in France and according to IAAF rule 5.2 :

An athlete who has never competed in an International Competition under Rules 1.1(a), (b), (c), (f) or (g) shall be eligible to represent a Member in an International Competition under Rules 1.1(a), (b), (c), (f) or (g) if he is a Citizen of the Country (or Territory) by virtue of having been born or by virtue of having a parent or grandparent born in the Country (or Territory).

Prior to the Championships, Trapeau had recorded a personal best of two minutes 4.82 seconds at Twilight Meet #3 to rank number one in Canada.
Sharelle Samuel also made quick work of the heats, crossing the line in a personal best 53.62 seconds to advance to the 400m semi-finals. Samuel, who was a double gold medalist at the recent OFSAA Championships appears to be peaking at just the right time. Tuesday’s race was her second lifetime best over the one lap event in a matter of weeks, having run 53.68 seconds at the recent Ontario Senior Championships.
Like Trapeau, Samuel will return to action Wednesday, racing in semi-final number one at 11:25am Eastern. She will be in tough, running blind out of lane eight.
 
 

As the dust began to settle on another edition of the Canadian Track and Field Championships, the Ottawa Lions went out with a bang, picking up a total of eight medals on the final day of competition. The medal haul was driven primarily by the relay crews which picked up seven medals, including three gold.
Gold medals came from the senior women’s 4x100m and both men’s and women’s senior 4x400m relay teams. Stephanie Gould ran lead off for both victorious women’s teams, helping each to times of 48.10 seconds and 3:51.13 respectively.
The men’s team of Bertwin Ben-Smith, Stephen Evans, Saj Alhaddad and Sebastian Saville dominated the open men’s 4x400m winning in a time of 3:15.56 was nearly six seconds ahead of their nearest competition.
Relay gold was the second medal of the session for Saj Alhaddad after opening the final day’s session with silver in the 400 metre hurdles following a 51.50 second clocking. Alhaddad was thankful for the performance after last year’s final where he crashed out of the race. The Syrian born runner pushed the pace throughout the race, but said nagging back injury slowed his momentum into the final hurdle and Malik Metivier of Etobicoke capitalized to take the gold.
In an oversight from Saturday night’s session, we missed reporting the silver medal in the senior women’s triple jump from Divya Biswal. This was the second straight silver for the St. Lawrence University graduate, who produced a best effort of 12.51m on the night.
Despite being below her personal best from a year ago, Biswal said the competition gave her hope for the future. Her work on Wall Street as an analyst at a hedge firm has shifted her focus this season.”The running is there. The speed is great. My body is just not used to it,” said Biswal. She hopes to build on the positives from this weekend as she heads out on the club’s European tour this week.
The other medals from the final days came from the following relay teams:
SILVER – U20 Women 4x100m – 51.59s (Caroline Poirier, Annabelle Gagne, Julia Maine, Eleni Pantieras)
SILVER – Open Women 4x400m – 4:59.56 (Marie-Eve Dahms, Sophia Skorenky, Emmanuelle Keogh, Rebecca Brennan)
BRONZE – Open Women 4x100m – 51.51s (Marie-Eve Dahms, Mary Ollier, Claudine Nafaa, Svetlana Martynova)
BRONZE – U20 Men 4x400m – 3:24.96 (Joe Fast, Matthew Hebert, Quinn Lyness, Zach Meredith)
Thank you to everyone who came out and supported the Championships, especially the countless volunteers, officials and coaches who helped make the meet a success.
See everyone in Montreal next year for the 2019 Canadian Championships
 

Well it was certainly a case of good things coming in bunches Saturday evening as Lions athletes picked up four medals in a mere 45 minutes to close out the evening’s track session.
Training partners Jonathan Rioux and Andre Alie-Lamarch went 2-3 in the U20 men’s 3000m steeplechase, with a mere 13 one thousandths of a second separating the pair at the line. Saturday’s battle between the pair is not uncharted territory as they typically go hard after each other in their final training runs.
Last night, they both entered with the similar game plan of 73 second laps and let it all go in the final kilometre. “I didn’t expect it. I was just trying to hold on to the lead pack,” said Rioux of his silver medal performance. “I’m happy it turned out that way. It felt good,”
Next to make the podium was Farah Jacques, picking up bronze over the 100 metre hurdles in a time of 13.46 seconds. The Olympic finalist in the 4x100m relay has seen a great deal of success in her first season in the hurdles, running a personal best of 13.36 seconds and now picking up a national medal. Teammate Devyani Biswal followed closely behind in a time of 13.69 seconds to finish fourth.
Rounding out the evenings haul was Phillip Frank, who picked up his second bronze of the day, running 14.64 seconds in the U20 men’s 110 metre hurdles.  Frank was a little disappointed with his performance in the high jump, despite picking up bronze, but was happy to come back and put down a pretty quick performance in the hurdles. Frank had hoped to compete in the decathlon competition this week, but felt it was too soon after his seventh place performance in last month’s New Balance Outdoor Nationals decathlon in North Carolina.
Action wraps up today at the Canadian Championships with plenty of medals still left to be handed out.
To purchase tickets, https://www.showclix.com/event/canadian-track-field-championships-2018
Live Results: http://liveresults.athletics.ca/Live_Results/2018/Championships/
Live Stream: athleticscanada.tv

The Canadian championships had a definite touch of youth Saturday morning with a total of seven U20 finals being contested in the field. Among the many medalists were pole vaulter Caroline Poirier and high jumper Philip Frank who captured the eighth and ninth medals of the championship for the club.
Reaching new heights in the pole vault was Poirier as she cleared a lifetime best of 3.70 metres on her second attempt. The second attempt clearance allowed Poirier to stay ahead of the University of Toronto Track Club’s Alexzandra Throndson based on countback. Throndson, who entered the competition ranked first, also cleared 3.70 metres, but required a third attempt to do so.
Poirier’s medal is also the first in a decade for a female vaulter from Ottawa, with the last being a bronze from club record holder Patricia Gauthier at the 2008 Olympic Trials.
For Frank, there was no personal best, but his clearance of 1.95 metres certainly went to a count back. However, in Frank’s case it was a situation similar to that of Derek Drouin’s Olympic bronze in 2012 when a series of first attempt clearances led to a three way tie for third.
Another noteworthy field performance came from Wariso Dullo. The U20 javelin thrower unleashed a massive personal best of 57.94m that at one point put him in the gold medal position. However, a sixth round personal best from Quinton McMillan bumbed Dullo off the podium and into fourth place.
On the track, veterans Adam Palamar and Oluwasegun Makinde both advanced to finals in the respective events. Palamar, the Canadian Junior record holder over 1500m, comfortably advanced to tomorrow’s final in a time 3:47.23. Similarly, Makinde advanced to tonight’s 200m final on place courtesy of his windy 21.28 seconds.
To purchase tickets, https://www.showclix.com/event/canadian-track-field-championships-2018
Live Results: http://liveresults.athletics.ca/Live_Results/2018/Championships/
Live Stream: athleticscanada.tv
 

It was a morning of elation and heartbreak for two hurdlers on day five of the Canadian Track and Field Championships at Terry Fox Athletic Facility. For Saj Alhaddad that meant comfortably advancing to tomorrow’s 400 metre hurdle final, while Mary Ollier saw her chance to race again this weekend slip through her fingers following a tumble off the final hurdle.
Crossing the line in 52.13 seconds, Alhaddad executed his game plan of staying calm, clearing hurdle ten and seeing where everyone is at and cruising to victory. “There’s already lots of pressure heading into the race, so I tried to keep it as relaxed as possible,” said Alhaddad following the race.
After a blistering start to his season, which saw Alhaddad move to fourth in club history with a time of 51.34 seconds, he was hampered by some back issues which led to a change in game plan and a break from racing. He returned to action only a couple weeks ago with a silver medal at the Ontario Championships in 51.65 seconds.
Malik Metivier of the Etobicoke Track and Field Club, who won gold ahead of Saj at the provincial championships, won the other semi-final, but Alhaddad did have a message for tomorrow’s final. “This is home, and we need to be ready to protect home.”
At the other end of the spectrum, Mary Ollier appeared to be executing her race plan to a tee, even clearing hurdle ten, but stumbled to the track in proceeding steps. “I came off the last hurdle and I think I lost my balance,” said Ollier who was confident she was on the way to a new personal best and possibly a spot in Sunday’s final.
Ollier, who was racing in her third race of the week did also think there may have been some fatigue in her legs after running the 400m qualifying on Thursday and the semi’s last night.
Action continues today and tomorrow at Terry Fox Athletic Facility with 200m semis and finals being the big draw on Saturday.
To purchase tickets, https://www.showclix.com/event/canadian-track-field-championships-2018
Live Results: http://liveresults.athletics.ca/Live_Results/2018/Championships/
Live Stream: athleticscanada.tv
 

While much of the focus tonight at the Terry Fox Athletic Facility was on the sprint straightaway, it was the Lion field eventers who produced the most notable performances, led by Tim Nedow’s sixth straight Canadian title in the shot put.
Nedow simply dominated the field, with all six throws surpassing the 20 metre barrier, and exceeding his competition by nearly two metres. With a best mark of 20.94 metres, the Brockville native’s performance was the second best outdoor performance of his life following his Commonwealth Games medal performance earlier this year. Nedow’s brother, Thomas was also a finalist in the shot put competition, producing an outdoor best performance of 16.06 metres.
Hammer thrower Sultana Frizell also captured a medal Friday evening with a bronze. The Perth native hurled her four kilogram ball and chain out to a distance of 61.84 metres in the fifth round. Tonight’s event was the first competition for Frizell since her fourth place finish at April’s Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. In that time, her focus has shifted to her studies, beginning full time massage therapy training in May.
On the long jump runway, the story was the same a year later for Divya Biswal, narrowly looking in from outside the podium. While Biswal is better known for her prowess in the triple jump, she finished fourth in the long jump for the second straight season, just six centimetres off the podium tonight. She will have another chance for a medal Saturday evening in the triple jump.
In the women’s 100m final, Farah Jacques was seventh overall after a 11.91 second effort in the chilly 18 degree air. Jacques will be back in action Saturday night, running semi-finals of the 100m hurdles at 5:20pm.
Also on the track, Seb Saville was the only Lion to qualify for the 800m final, making it in on time with a 1:51.38 clocking. Tops among the women was Charlotte Gardner, who crossed the line in 2:06.59 to finish eleventh overall.
Action resumes Saturday morning at 10am with 400 metre hurdle semi’s on the track and U20 long jump and javelin in the field.
To purchase tickets, https://www.showclix.com/event/canadian-track-field-championships-2018
Live Results: http://liveresults.athletics.ca/Live_Results/2018/Championships/
Live Stream: athleticscanada.tv
 

While the temperatures dropped over night, the performances continue to heat up as Brandon Ovington picks up the fifth medal for the Ottawa Lions at the Canadian Track and Field Championships.
Despite only being 17, Ovington unleashed a massive three metre personal best with the junior implement to secure bronze with 46.86 metres. The West Carleton Secondary School Student has been picking medals up left, right and centre all year, as today’s performance follows silver at both the Ontario High School and Athletics Ontario Championships.
On the track, junior runners Keili Shepherd and Joe Fast both advanced to Saturday’s U20 1500m final based on time. Shepherd, who just finished her first year at the University of Ottawa, was fifth her semi and was the fastest of the non-automatic qualifiers in 4:41.27. Fast, who last month won OFSAA gold in the junior boys category, was also fifth in his heat, crossing the line in 4:00.99 to move on.
Action continues this evening with hammer thrower Sultana Frizell going for her eighth Canadian championship in the event, while shot putter Tim Nedow goes for his sixth straight national title.
On the track, Canada’s fastest man and woman will be crowned with semi-finals of the 100m going at 5:30pm and finals following at 9pm.
To purchase tickets, https://www.showclix.com/event/canadian-track-field-championships-2018
Live Results: http://liveresults.athletics.ca/Live_Results/2018/Championships/
Live Stream: athleticscanada.tv