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Competing in a field which included seven of the top eight competitors at last summer’s Olympic Games, Melissa Bishop opened her season Saturday with a sixth place finish at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon.
Starting out of lane one, Bishop sat near the back of the pack before surging late to cross the line in a career best opener of 1:59.52.
“It’s the season opener, so I’m happy that it’s under two [minutes] but it shows there’s some work to do and it’s just about getting in more races and exploring the tactics,” Bishop said.

Athletics Canada announced its Hall of Fame Class of 2017 – Athletes Glenroy Gilbert (Ottawa Lions), Jillian Richardson-Briscoe and Thelma Wright; Coach Peter Manning; and Builders Judy Armstrong and Andy McInnis (Ottawa Lions).
Join us on Wednesday, July 5, to honour the Class of 2017 at our Hall of Fame and Awards Gala. The gala will take place in the International Ballroom at the Delta Ottawa City Centre, the official host hotel of the 2017 Canadian Track & Field Championships.

• Read the official announcement
• Tickets – purchase an ‘Early-Bird’ pass now through May 31 for only $20
• Athletics Canada Hall of Fame Inductees
• 2016 Annual Award Winners

Olympian Tim Nedow took another step on his way back to a global championship on Thursday, winning Mideast Invitational shot put at Widener University in Pennsylvania.
The 6 foot 5 inch Brockville native launched the 16 pound ball out to 20.72m for the victory, and surpass the entry standard this summer’s IAAF World Championships in London. To secure his position on Team Canada, Nedow will need to finish among the top two at the Canadian Championships in Ottawa.
At the same competition, Ashlea Maddex continued her recent string of success, winning the 100m hurdles over teammate Devyani Biswal with a time of 13.40 seconds. Maddex was also the victor over 100m and took second in the 200m.
Opening her season Saturday in Windsor was two-time Olympian Melissa Bishop, moving up to the 1500m much like she did in 2016’s season opener. The 2015 World Championship silver medalist took the lead at the 400m mark following the pace setter’s departure and never relinquished it, holding off Shannon Osika of the United States to win in 4:10.30.
In Arizona, Sultana Frizell extended her season’s best to 68.01m in the hammer throw as she finished fourth at the Tucson Elite Classic.

Olympic relay champion Glenroy Gilbert has been named Canada’s head coach for the world track and field championships, while Kim Cousins and Rick Reelie will be Canada’s co-head coaches at the world para championships.
Athletics Canada remains without a head coach since the firing of Peter Eriksson in December
Gilbert, an Ottawa native, ran on the Canadian 4×100-metre relay team that won Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996. He’s worked with Canada’s relay program for several years.
“We have great momentum coming off our best Olympic Games in modern history, the focus continues to be high performance, driven by results,” Gilbert said Friday in a release.
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It was a successful weekend under the Arizona sun for four lady Lions at the Desert Challenge Games in Phoenix this past weekend. Among the highlights were Canadian Record performances by Keegan Gaunt and Shanna Boutilier.
As the lone entry in her 800m race, Gaunt obliterated the previous Canadian T13 record, crossing the finish line in 2:24.24. Gaunt’s performance was more than 10 seconds faster than the previous standard set by Courtney Knight at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney.
While Shanna Boutillier swept all three sprint titles, it was her winning time of 1:06.73 in the T46 400m which will be etched into the Canadian record books. Boutillier also won the 100m in 15.03 seconds
before taking the 200m in 30.83.
In the T12 category, Larissa Brown was victorious in the 100m, 200m and long jump. All three of Brown’s performances (13.85s, 27.95s and 4.72m) were slightly off her current Canadian records.
Also competing was 2012 Paralympian Rachael Burrows, who was third in the T34 200m and fourth in both the 100m and 400m.
Also this weekend, a small contingent took part in the Swathmore Final Qualifier in Pennsylvania with Lions athletes picking up seven medals including three golds.
The hurdlers again had a strong outing, sweeping both the men’s and women’s titles as well as finishing 1-2-3 in the women’s event. Ashlea Maddex led the women’s contingent winning in a seasonal best equaling 13.38 seconds. Maddex also picked up a silver in the open 100m. Devyani Biswal and Tania Bambi were second and third respectively while Sekou Kaba won the men’s event.
In the field, 2016 Olympian Tim Nedow dominated the men’s shot put field, easily winning with a best toss of 20.21m. The next closest competitor was nearly four and a half metres behind.
In the women’s triple jump, club record holder Divya Biswal was second place finisher with a best leap of 12.61m.
Finally, at the Atlantic Coast Conference championships, Adam Palamar finished 4th in 3 minutes 47.34 seconds.

When the athletics portion of the 2017 Francophone Games kicks off in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire on July 28, the Ottawa Lions will be well represented with four participating athletes as well as team coach James Holder.
Leading the Lions contingent will be 2016 Olympian Sekou Kaba. This will be Kaba’s second time representing Canada at the Francophone Games after winning four years ago in Nice, France.
Hurdler Ashlea Maddex will be making her senior national team debut after a successful career at global and regional age class championships, including twice winning bronze at the NACAC under-23 Championships.
Rounding out the Lions contingent will be twins Divya and Devyani Biswal. This will be the first national team appointment for both women. Divya, who will compete in the triple jump, is having a breakout season having already broken a 16 year old club record while cracking the 13 metre barrier. Devyani, the 2016 Canadian University Champion over the 60m hurdles, will join Maddex in the 100m hurdles.
 

Lions athletes closed out the month of April in variety of competitions across the United States, with 11 competing at the Big Red Invitational in Ithaca, NY on Sunday. The small contingent picked up a total of three medals on the Cornell University campus.
Saj Alhadad picked up the only victory in Ithaca, winning the men’s 400m hurdle race in a time of 54.29, narrowly edging out Clayton Jeffrey of the host school.
Grabbing a silver was Stephen Evans who finished second in the men’s 800m in a time of 1:55.72, four seconds behind Paul Lovell of Syracuse who won in a facility record time. Brandyn Martineau made the 100m final, finishing seventh.
On the women’s side, Ashlea Maddex was second in the 100m hurdles in a seasonal best 13.50 seconds. She was joined in the final by Devyani Biswal and Keira Christie-Galloway who were fourth and fifth respectively in seasonal best times as well. In the field, Tanya Coulter hurled the hammer out to 47.44m. The mark currently ranks sixth among juniors in Canada.
Further south in Philadelphia, Biswal’s twin Divya bounded out to 12.66m to take bronze in the Penn Relays Olympic Development triple jump.
 

From Runners World

Tommy Des Brisay had an insatiable need to move when he was a child.

He began walking at 8 months old. He would bounce on his backyard trampoline for hours and climb heights fearlessly. He slept only three hours a night until he was 7. As he grew older, he would go on long tandem bike rides, cross-country ski, and lead his father on walks that would leave them stranded miles from their home in Ottawa, Ontario.
And when he was stressed or upset, Des Brisay—who was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 and a half—would run. This posed a danger, because he didn’t understand what could harm him: traffic, exposure to weather, strangers.
When he was 14, in 2006, his mother, Mary Ann Given Des Brisay, asked her husband, Peter Des Brisay, to try taking their son along on his daily run, hoping to provide him a way to channel his desire for movement.
“It made sense—take something someone is instinctively driven to do and make it into a positive, rather than try to squelch a behavior,” Given Des Brisay said.
Continue reading on Runners World

It was a busy three day tour of Southern California for a small group of Lions this past weekend and for Divya Biswal, it was one for the record books.
With stops at Cal State University – Los Angeles, Azusa Pacific University and Long Beach State University,  Biswal broke the nearly 15 year old club record in the triple jump not once, but twice in two days, adding 37 cm to the old standard.
The record fell first Friday night at the Bryan Clay Invitational on the campus of of Azusa Pacific University when the former NCAA Division III champion bounded out to a new lifetime best of 12.89m.
While spending her days working as an analyst on Wall Street, Biswal has been steadily improving in her second year out of university, highlighted by her 13.11m record performance to win in Long Beach on Saturday – the third personal best of the season.
However, Divya’s excellence was restricted to bounding thrice, but also the long jump where she cracked the six metre barrier for the first time on Thursday in winning at Cal State Los Angeles with a leap of 6.01m. The performance moves her to third in club history.
On the track, Saj Alhadad lowered his personal best by the narrowest of margins Friday, running 52.47 in the 400m hurdles at Azusa. His previous best of 52.48 was set last year. He currently ranks seventh in club history.