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Just under two years ago John Claude Van Biljon boarded a plane from his native South Africa bound for Ottawa to compete in the IAAF Capital Cup, one of nine stops that year on the World Combined Events Challenge Series. Fast forward to this past weekend in Toronto and the 24 year old Van Biljon won bronze in the decathlon at the Canadian Championships.
Immediately upon arrival in Ottawa, Van Biljon became enamoured with the city. Before he even had a chance to fly home to South Africa, he was already looking for a way to extend his stay in Canada. Over the past twenty four months, he has worked tirelessly both on and off the track, honing his practice in the decathlon with Coach James Holder as well as ensuring he would be able to stay and train in his new found home.
Last week, just before departing for Toronto, Van Biljon’s efforts off the track were rewarded when he received his permanent resident status. This was one piece of the puzzle towards reaching his first Canadian Championship medal. The rest lay in the ten events spread over two days at Varsity Stadium.
It was solid results in more rewarding events like the long jump (6.57m), high jump (1.89m), and pole vault (4.65m) that helped propel the South African to the medal stand. When he crossed the line of the concluding event, the 1500m, Van Biljon had amassed 6640 points – just 15 ahead of London Western’s Austin McLeod – to take bronze.
Oddly enough, Sunday marked the second time Van Biljon has finished third at the Championships. Last year in Ottawa, he set a new lifetime best of 6788 points to place third, but had to defer the medal to training partner Telvin Tavernier as he was not yet a permanent resident.
Also finishing among the top five was Kevin Nault. The University of Ottawa graduate posted a lifetime best of 6386 points to finish fifth overall. It was Nault’s highest finish ever at nationals.
On the women’s side, combined events rookie Emily Sprague also placed fifth in her first Canadian Championship. The soon to be fourth year student at the University of Ottawa scored a lifetime best 4155 points over the two day heptathlon highlighted by solid results in the 100m hurdles (15.51s) and 200m (26.55s).
 

She’s baaack! While Melissa Bishop-Nriagu had already opened her 2019 campaign two weeks prior with a new club record in the 1500 metres, Friday night’s return to her speciality – the 800 metres – felt more real.
Bishop-Nriagu, who sat out the 2018 season after giving birth to her daughter Corinne, looked as though she had not lost a step as she broke the Speed River Inferno meet record with her winning time of 2:01.10. However, her competitive drive prompted mixed feelings about the result.
“I haven’t raced in two years, so I can’t be all that upset with it, but I obviously have very high expectations of myself,” the four time Canadian champion told her Instagram followers. “I have full confidence in myself that I will get back to (1:57 form) very shortly but I have to kind of bust the rust.”
Next up for Bishop-Nriagu will be the Harry Jerome Classic June 20th in Burnaby, BC where she quipped, “hopefully it will be faster than this one.”
Bishop-Nriagu was just one half of a Lions sweep of the 800 metres in Guelph as Stephen Evans captured the men’s race in one minute and 49.61 seconds. The USports 600 metre champion utilized a late surge to overtake 2015 Canadian Champion Corey Bellemore, who eventually fell to third in the final standings. Evans was quite excited by the victory, saying after the race, “I’m telling you, Canada’s got to be careful because I’m coming up big next!”
In the 100 metre hurdles event, Devyani Biswal took seventh in a time of 13.93 seconds. The former USports champion was content with the result, saying, “I’ve been working through an injury for about a month, so it was nice to get back on the track and race.”
 

As another OFSAA Championship came and went this weekend, one thing that could be said about the performance Lions athletes is – they are really good at running over hurdles. The finally medal tally for the Club was 13 medals, including 6 gold. All but four of those medals came in an event with barriers.
The duo of Kevin Robertson and Will Cox were the first to rise above the barriers as they went 1-3 in the open boys 2000 metre steeplechase. Robertson dominated the event almost from the gun as he methodically put metres between him and the field lap after lap. The culmination was a nearly 50 metre margin of victory from the grade 12 Bell runner as his winning time of 5:47.55 was the fastest since 2016. Training partner Will Cox of Colonel By took the bronze in a personal best 5:56.97. Robertson nearly managed a second medal in the senior boys 3000 metres, falling a half second short of bronze as he was fourth in 8:36.37.
Luca Nicoletti entered this year’s OFSAA Championship with a strong resume that included two meet records over the 100 and 300 metre hurdles at the previous week’s regional championships. The grade 9 student at Paul Desmarais followed that up gold in the sprint event and silver in the intermediate hurdles. Nicolletti narrowly took the crown in the 100 metre hurdles in 13.69 seconds as he smashed hurdles seven and nine fairly hard, but still managed to finished a hundredth of a second ahead of second place. He followed that up the next day with a massive personal best of 39.47 seconds over the 300 metre hurdles. The time bettered the previous OFSAA record, but so did Ryder King who took the event in 39.24 seconds. Rounding out the podium was Nicoletti’s training partner Andile Mabaleka who won bronze in a personal best 41.28 seconds.
The success in the midget boys intermediate hurdles was just the tip of the iceberg for the Lions in the event as Leewinchel Jean, Helena Jovic and Keito Newman also brought home some hardware. Jean and Jovic swept the senior 400 metre hurdle events in very different fashion. Jean, a grade 12 student at Giselle Lalonde, was the class of his field as his personal best time of 52.95 illustrates. The mark is the top performance by a Canadian under the age of 20 this year and will qualify him Jean to represent Canada at this summer’s Pan American U20 Championships in Costa Rica. He will be joined by Jovic, who’s never give up attitude was rewarded with a gold medal and massive personal best as she cracked the 60 second barrier for the first time ever. The John McRae student came off hurdle 10 a few steps back of Sandwich Secondary’s Karlie Moore and was able to find the narrowest of openings to pass Moore in the final centimetres of the race. Newman, who narrowly missed out on a spot in Friday’s 100m hurdle final, found some retribution over the 300 metre race. The Glebe student ran a significant personal best time of 39.59 seconds to place second to Mark Skerl of Cardinal Newman.
Rounding out the medals on the track was Mattson Strickler as she took silver in the junior girls 400 metres. The St. Joesph’s student ran back to back personal bests in the heats and finals culminating in a fantastic time of 56.38 seconds. In all, Strickler took a massive two and a half seconds off her personal best from East Regionals the week before.
In the field, St. Peter’s Vienna Courteau also jumped on the “PB train” as she popped off a lifetime best leap of 5.36 metres in the fourth round to claim gold in the junior girls long jump. To show it was no fluke, she leapt to 5.30 metres in round five and looked to go even further in the sixth and final round, but fell victim to a narrow foot fault. However, the field was not able to retaliate and Courteau was rewarded with her first OFSAA Championship.
The final two medals came from shot putters Brandon Ovington and Brianna Asiamah. Ovington, a student at West Carleton Secondary School used some last round heroics to capture silver in the senior boy’s event. Sitting in third heading into the final round with a best of 16.86 metres, Ovington unleashed a bomb of a throw that touched down at 18.20 metres to secure the silver. The throw was the farthest by a Lion athlete since the 2000 OFSAA Championships when Brian MacPhee also picked up a silver medal with a throw of 18.35 metres. Asiamah also unleashed a sixth round personal best to secure her medal. The Holy Trinity student cracked the 12 metre barrier for the first time with her 12.09 metre throw to finish third.
For complete Lions results from OFSAA, please consult the list below:

Each year after the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association awards the prestigious All-America award to those athletes who place among the top 16. On Thursday night in Austin, the trio of Lauren Gale, Keira Christie-Galloway and Erinn Stenman-Fahey each earned their first All-American distinction.
Gale was the first to run, competing in the 4×100 metre relay with her Colorado State Ram teammates. As she has done all year, the freshman runner ran a strong leg on the back stretch, helping to propel the Rams to a fifth place finish in their semi-final and a new school record of 43.92 seconds. It was the fouth time the Rams had broken the school mark this season and this time it placed them 16th in the country to claim the final All-American spot.
Next on the track was Christie-Galloway who did not disappoint in posting the second fastest time of her life over the 100 metre hurdles. The Iowa State Cyclone crossed the line in 13.15 seconds to finish sixth in her heat and place 16th overall. The next focus for Christie-Galloway will be the upcoming World University Games set to take place in less than a month’s time in Naples, Italy.
The elder statesman of the group, Stenman-Fahey, closed out her collegiate career in the best way possible – with a new personal best. The Cyclone senior concluded in two lap tour of  Mike A. Myers Stadium in two minutes and 5.11 seconds – 31 thousandths faster than she had ever done before. The result was a sixth place finish in her heat and third top 16 performance for the Lions.
Congratulations to our three All-American Canadians!

The 2019 OFSAA Track and Field Championships got off to a golden start for the Lions today as Wariso Dullo captured gold in the senior boys javelin and eight other athletes advanced to their respective event finals.
For Dullo, Friday’s effort marked the perfect culmination to a decorated high school throwing career. The Gloucester High School student matched his lifetime best of 57.94 metres in the fifth round to take a commanding lead. While his fellow competitors threw everything they could at Dullo, they all came up short in one of the closer javelin competitions in recent OFSAA memory as the separation between gold and bronze totalled just 35 centimetres. Today’s victory gives Dullo a complete set of OFSAA medals after winning midget silver and junior bronze.
On the track, things got off to a great start with Skye Pellerin, Kevin Robertson and Will Cox all advancing to the final of the 2000m steeplechase on Friday. Pellerin was the fifth fastest among the female qualifiers with a time of 7:15.33. In the men’s contest, Robertson won his heat in a comfortable 6:12.09 while Cox was third in the other heat with a time of 6:09.34.
In the 400 metres heats, Helena Jovic smashed her personal best by more than half a second as she finished second in her senior girls heat with a time of 56.41 seconds. Her previous best was 57.12 from the 2017 Canadian U20 Championships. Also advancing in the one lap race were Audrey Gilmour and Yannick Meredith of De La Salle who each placed second in their respective heats. Gilmour, running in the junior girls section, finished in 58.64 seconds while Meredith was fourth fastest in the midget boys 400 metres with a time of 51.60.
The final two qualifiers on day one were Zoe Gardiner and Joe Fast in the 1500 metres. Gardiner had the top time in today’s qualifying for the junior girls division. The Glebe Collegiate student posted a time of 4:43.24, three tenths faster than her nearest competitor. In the senior boy’s event, Fast battled it out with Mason Jones of Thousand Islands Secondary School in Brockville before prevailing to win his heat in 4:02.60.
Action resumes at the University of Guelph’s Alumni Stadium 8:30am on Friday with Eleanor Hall bounding down the runway in the midget girls triple jump.

The 2019 edition of the NCAA Track and Field Championships kicked off in Austin, Texas this afternoon, but for a trio of Lions they’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get going in the Lone Star Capital.
The Lions will be well represented by Iowa State’s Erinn Stenman-Fahey and Keira Christie-Galloway as well as Colorado State’s Lauren Gale. While both Stenman-Fahey and Christie-Galloway are set to toe the line in individual events, Gale will be running the second leg of the Ram’s 4×100 metre relay.
Gale and her teammates kick off the action Thursday night at 8:02pm eastern in second of three semi-finals where they will run out in lane nine. Entering with a best and school record of 44.12 seconds, the Rams sport the 17th fastest time in the competition. They will likely need to break the school mark for the fourth time this season if they are to advance to Saturday’s final.
An hour later, Keira Christie-Galloway steps on the track for semi-final number two of the 100 metre hurdles. The Big 12 Conference champion will be in tough as her personal best time of 13.10 seconds from her win in Norman, Oklahoma ranks sixth heading in. The top two from each heat plus the next two fastest times will advance to Saturday’s final.
Teammate Erinn Stenman-Fahey will conclude the night for the Lions as she runs in the 800 metre semi-final at 9:44pm. The Canterbury graduate should benefit from running in the third and final semi where she will likewise need to place among the top two in her heat or post one of the two next fastest times to advance. Stenman-Fahey enters the event with a best of 2:05.42, which ranks 23rd among the field.
For full live results from Austin, visit the NCAA Results Page.
Schedule

*If they qualify

For one day this weekend, Shanna Boutilier got to say she was the fastest Canadian woman in history for the T46 400m. The 22 year old set a new lifetime best of 65.03 seconds for the one lap race at the Soirée Sélect #2 meet in St. Laurent, Quebec.
Saturday night’s performance allowed Boutilier to regain the record she had lost just one week ago to Edmonton’s Amanda Rummery when she posted a time of 65.29 seconds at an event in Arizona. Unfortunately for Boutilier, her reign as Canadian Queen of the T46 400m was short lived with Rummery dipping under the new mark on Sunday with a time of 64.92 seconds.
In other news, shot putter Tim Nedow captured gold at the famous Halle Throws Festival in Germany. The six time Canadian Champion was able to push the 16 pound ball out to a distance of 20.87 metres, putting him nearly a foot clear of the the other podium finishers – Darrell Hill (20.67m) and Joe Kovacs (20.43m) of the United States.

By Zachary Quevillon
The stakes were high and stress levels even higher this week in Belleville at the East Regional Championships. Over 80 (Yes, you read that right!) Lions traveled with their school teams to take a crack at qualifying for the OFSAA Championships next week in Guelph, Ontario. A top four finish was enough to punch their ticket. Despite several heartbreaking fifth place finishers, 55 athletes are moving on.
The highlights started Thursday evening with Luca Nicoletti continuing his record setting streak in the 300m hurdles as he won in a time of 41.09 seconds. In the 100mh, Nicoletti would out lean training partner Andile Mabaleka for the win – 13.84 to 13.88 seconds. Both boys smashed the old standard of 14.12.
There were several loud cheers at the junior girls pole vault on Thursday night as Chloe Maine and Amelia Wojtyk took turns breaking the previous meet best of 3.00m. Amelia would finish with the new record height of 3.20m while Chloe was second with 3.10m.
The 400m runners had their work cut out for them as strong winds met them down the back stretch. However, that didn’t stop Emily Brennan (61.09), Audrey Gilmour (58.33), and Helena Jovic (57.75) from all claiming gold in their respective age categories.
Yannick Meredith cruised to easy victories in the midget boys 400m and 800m. The cross country OFSAA medalist will undoubtedly challenge for more hardware next weekend.
Keito Newman and Matthew Needham were in a head to head for the junior boys 100m hurdles title. Newman (14.22 seconds) claimed victory with Needham (14.36) nabbing the silver medal.
Completing the 1-2 theme in the senior boys 110m hurdles were Lee Jean and David Adeleye. This week, it was Lee who came out on top with a blistering time of 14.31 seconds to David’s 14.47. Lee was also victorious in the 400m hurdles.
Helena Jovic continued to display great range as she added to her 400m victory with a convincing win in the 400m hurdle event.
Training partners Jack Link and Manuel Fernandez timed a perfect kick to slide into qualifying positions in the midget boys 1500m.
Be sure to come and see all the talent on display at our Twilight Meet series starting on June 12th!
A massive thank you from all of the athletes to their respective high school coaches. Without them, this exciting season would not take place!
Midget Girls
Emily Brennan 300mh + 400m
Samantha Sharp 400m
Gillian Porter 800m + 1500m
Charlotte Murchison 800m
Eleanor Hall 80mh + Triple Jump
Junior Girls
Katie Manor 100m + 4x100m relay
Audrey Gilmour 100m + 400m
Ellie Munro 100m + 200m + 4x400m relay
Mattson Strickler 400m
Zoe Gardiner 800m + 1500m
Vienna Courteau 80mh + LJ
Samantha Wiseberg 300mh
Jalena Marelic 4x100m relay
Ella Gilbert 4x100m relay
Amelia Wojtyk PV (Record)
Chloe Maine PV (Also surpassed old record)
Senior Girls
Paulina Procyk 100m + 4x400m relay
Helena Jovic 200m + 400m + 400mh
Doyin Ogunremi 400m
Olivia Macaskill 1500m
Katie Newlove 3000m
Skye Pellerin 3000m + 2000m Steeple Chase
Eleni Pantieras PV
Emma Dobson Takoff Triple Jump
Erin Sweeney Shot Put
Madison Maclean Shot Put + Javelin
Brianna Asiamah Shot Put
Kaitlyn Effenberger Shot Put
Caitlin McMann 4x400m relay
Midget Boys
Luca Nicoletti 100m + 100mh (Record) + 300mh (record)
Yannick Meredith 400m + 800m + 4x100m relay
Thomas Kukla Colby 400m
Jack Link 1500m
Manuel Fernandez 1500m
Kyle Porter 3000m
Andile Mabaleka 100mh (also surpassed old record) + 300mh
Charles Asselin 4x100m relay
Junior Boys
Dani Hassan 100m + 200m + 4x100m relay
Donovan Tran 100m
Sam Robinson 200m
Liam Lemery 800m
Keaton McGrath 800m
Keito Newman 100mh + 300mh
Matthew Needham 100mh
Alexander Cholmsky 4x100m relay
Reggie Bruno High Jump + Long Jump
Senior Boys
Zach Meredith 800m
Joe Fast 1500m + 3000m
Leewinchell Jean 110mh + 400mh
David Adeleye 110mh
Jesus Bustillos Pole Vault
Joshua Foster Long Jump + Triple Jump
Brandon Ovington Shot Put + Discus
Wariso Dullo Javelin
Will Cox 2000m Steeplechase
Kevin Robertson Steeplechase + 3000m

As more than 32,000 runners took to the streets of Ottawa this weekend to for the annual Race Weekend, Lions athletes had their fair share of success as they crossed the finish line just to the east of the Governor General’s Foot Guard Museum.
Kicking things off was high school senior Kevin Robertson as he ran away with the victory in the 2km race. The Queen’s University commit crossed the line in five minutes and 21.8 seconds, more than 20 seconds clear of the second place finisher. Saturday’s race was a final tune up for for Robertson as he looks to qualify for his first OFSAA Track and Field Championships this week at East Regionals in Belleville.
The 5km race was where fellow high schooler Skye Pellerin found success. The 16 year old St. Francis Xavier student came across the line in a time of 18:52.5, about a half minute back of silver. Masters athlete, Liz Maguire was the next highest finisher for the Lions as she placed seventh in 19:21.6.
In the men’s 5km race it was a pair of Carleton Raven alums who dominated the podium. Alexander Maxwell was victorious in the most closely contested race of the entire weekend, finishing in 15 minutes and 36.3 seconds – a scant two tenths of the second place finisher from Halifax. While Maxwell is known for his exploits at the longer distances, from Ravens teammate Sebastian Saville is not. However, the 800 metre specialist battled right through to the end, picking up a bronze in 15:37.7 – less than two seconds behind Maxwell.
In addition to the prestige of being and IAAF Gold Label race, the 10km event also served as the Canadian Championships and both the Lion men and women fared well. The top finisher was Katie Phillips who crossed the line in 37 minutes and 0.5 seconds. The former CIS Cross Country Rookie of the Year was the 13th Canadian women across the line and 20th overall. Not far behind Phillips was teammate Becca Brennan who was 18th in the Canadian Championships with a time of 37 minutes and 32 seconds.
University of Ottawa teammates Nicholas Roberts and Andre Alie-Lamarche placed 32nd and 34th respectively in the men’s overall standings. Roberts, a third year Human Kinetics student finished in 32 minutes and 6.4 seconds to place 23rd among the Canadians. Meanwhile, Alie-Lamarche, who just finished his first year of International Development and Globalization studies, finished 25th nationally in 32 minutes and 22.6 seconds.
Elsewhere this weekend, Shanna Boutillier picked up three bronze from the 100 through 400 metre events at the World Para Athletics Desert Challenge Grand Prix in Arizona.
Also south of the border, Divya Biswal picked up another victory in the triple jump, posting a winning leap of 13.05 metres at the Chula Vista High Performance Meet in Southern California.