Posts tagged: Cross Country

If you have been around the Club long enough, you already know who holds the number one spot. Heck, you have likely known since we started writing this list. Murray Link of North Dundas District High School is widely considered to be the GOAT (the greatest of all-time) high school cross country runner in this area of the province. It is no surprise to see his name atop this list. A dominant force, the Winchester native would finish his high school career as a back-to-back-to-back winner of the provincial crown.

Link’s first go around at the OFSAA cross country championships was a fruitful endeavour, claiming silver behind Toronto’s Ricardo Santos in what would be the first of three battles the pair would engage in over the years.

In grade 10, Link finished off the podium in seventh, while Santos sat out the competition due to the OFSAA transfer policy. However, a year later the pair would again go head-to-head for provincial bragging rights. What transpired on that six kilometre course that day is certainly not something you hear of every day.

Link would win his first gold medal at the Championships, braving winter temperatures at the Boyd Conservation area in Woodbridge, but a chill in the air wasn’t the only thing trying to slow him down that day. While Link crossed the line two seconds ahead of Santos in a time of 20 minutes and 38 seconds, the margin of victory could have been much larger.

Link added his own touch of intrigue to the battle when he ran 40 metres off course before realizing the error of his way. “I knew something was wrong when I looked behind and no one was there,” said Link to the Toronto Star. “Then I saw Ricardo running another route and decided to quickly backtrack.”

A year later, the pair of Santos and Link went to battle once more, with Murray again taking victory, this time in the senior boy’s race.  Link would again emerge victorious in his final championship run, winning in London by a comfortable 10 second margin to complete the three peat.

By winning back-to-back senior boy’s titles, Link became just the sixth runner at the time to accomplish the feat in the near 40 year history of the OFSAA championship, joining the likes of Olympians Bruce Kidd and Kevin Sullivan as well as famed high school runner Greg Anderson.

Following his graduation, Link accepted an athletic scholarship to the University of Arkansas where he would study Agri-business and run for the Razorbacks. Link helped the Razorbacks capture three NCAA  team titles and twice earned All-American honours in cross country. After finishing his collegiate career, Link returned to the family farm in Winchester where he was a dairy farmer for over 16 years before having to step away because of a congenital bone deformity in 2017. Link’s name continues to live on at the Club with his son Jack running in the Aspire Program these days.

The penultimate athlete on our countdown may not have had a long high school running career in Ottawa, but he certainly made the strongest of impressions in his short time. Glebe Collegiate’s Yves Sikubwabo was a dominating runner during his two-year high school career in Ottawa, going undefeated and winning back-to-back OFSAA cross country titles.

Sikubwabo arrived in Ottawa by happenstance and fear for his life in the summer of 2010 at the age 17. The Rwandan native, who had lost both parents at the age of one to ethnic fighting in 1994 had been in Canada to race the 1500 metres at the World Under 20 Championships in Moncton. Following the Championships, his aunt, who had raised him, advised he stay in Canada for his personal safety. With less than 200 hundred dollars in his pocket, he made his way to the Moncton bus terminal, and remembering from his geography class that Ottawa was the capital, reasoned it would be the best place for him to claim refugee status. With the help of his Canadian parents, Nicole Le Saux and James Farmer, Yves enrolled at Glebe and the rest they say, is history.

The grade 11 student made an immediate impression on the local running scene. At that city championships, Sikubwabo gave good preview of what was in store for the rest of the province when he annihilated the field,  including future Canadian U20 record holder at 1500 metres, Adam Palamar, who finished in second, more than 90 seconds behind. A week later at OFSAA, Sikubwabo found himself running in the coldest weather he had faced as a runner, which left him unsure if he could even finish the seven-kilometre race under the conditions. However, by the second loop of the course his body had begun to warm up . “My body was changing and I felt good. I attacked the first-place people and I caught them. I was comfortable and I said to myself I can win,” he told The Ottawa Citizen. Sikubwabo would be the first across the line that day, 12 seconds ahead of silver medalist Rob Denault, in 21 minutes and 22.02 seconds.

Sikubwabo ended his short high school career with one of the strongest season’s high Canadian high school cross country has witnessed as he would win each of the six races he entered that season in a course record time. Running at home at the Hornet’s Nest in Gloucester was a special end his short high school career. “This was the hardest course I’ve ever done. The hills and the forest made it hard, but I did my best to defend my gold medal here at home,” he told The Ottawa Citizen. Yves’ course winning time of 22 minutes and 25.9 seconds on the seven-kilometre course was 24 seconds ahead of the silver medalist and an impressive 75 seconds faster than his previous record on the course.

After graduating from Glebe, Sikubwabo made his way to the University of Guelph where he would study mathematics for three years before transferring to Laval University in Quebec City to finish his studies. During his collegiate career, Sikubwabo captured four team titles, earned All-Canadian honours all five years and was back-to-back national champion in his final two years. Since finishing school, Yves has represented Canada at the World Cross Country Championships and set up an organization, Running Changed My Life, geared toward helping Rwandan and Kenyan Children attend school as well as take part in sport.

Coming in at number three on our list of the top OFSAA XC performers in Club history is Bell High School’s Mary Jane Richards. The Bruin runner was a dominant force on the high school running scene in the early 90’s, highlighted by three consecutive OFSAA gold medals.

With little competitive running under her belt before high school, Richards success was not immediate. In fact, the future national team member didn’t even run cross country in grade nine. However, by the time grade ten had rolled around she had become a force to be reckoned with. She would claim her first OFSAA gold medal in the midget girls race by a comfortable 50 metre margin over Laura Martin of Waterloo.

Over the next two years, Richards would dominate the high school cross country scene, winning back to back junior girls titles. As an example of her strength over the field, the Bell High School student defeated training partner Imogen Murphy by a minute at the National Capital meet on the way to her third straight gold and a week later, Murphy would finish two spots behind Richards with a bronze medal at OFSAA.

By the time Richards had entered the senior girls rank, she was not just known as a strong runner in the province, but had had considerable success at the national level (two time defending junior cross country champion) and even the international level, coming off a 17^th place finish the spring prior. All was primed for a fourth successive OFSAA title when an inflamed Achilles tendon slowed things down.

There was no running for Richards for 10 weeks, but she tried to keep fit with water training and lifting weights. She returned just in time for the high school season but went easy on the training. Despite the lower volume of work, Richards posted an impressive fourth place finish behind winner Julie Froud. After a further three weeks of training, the perpetual motion machine, as she was known by the Ottawa Citizen, enacted a little bit of revenge by winning her third straight Canadian junior title with Froud following behind in second.

After another fourth place finish in her final year of high school, Richards accepted a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin where she was second team All-Big 10 in her freshman year and helped the Bagders to an eighth place finish at the NCAA Championships. She would transfer to the University of Victoria the following year where she would earn a degree in psychology and go on to graduate from law school. She currently works as associate general counsel at Shopify’s head office here in Ottawa.

Number four on our list of the top OFSAA XC performers in Club history is an athlete, who by his own admission was not a runner when his high school career starter, but he certainly graduated as one – Allan Brett.  The Hillcrest High School graduate may have started slow, but he certainly finished with a bang, running away with bronze and gold medals in his final two years of school.

Brett’s freshman year of high school was not what one would typically associate with a future senior boys OFSAA champion. He didn’t make it to the finish line of his first race in high school – pulling out with abdominal cramps. However, that moment gave him a desire to never pull out of another race again. Running solely on the fitness gained from playing competitive soccer, Brett managed a second place finish at the city meet and would go on to a 42^nd place finish at the OFSAA Championships. It would be the worst finish of his high school career and mark the start of his ascension to the podium.

A year later, the influence of Hillcrest upperclassman, and number six on our list, Mike Woods took hold. “It’s what you want to be. It’s what you want to attain,” Brett told The Citizen of Woods’ words on running. Those words worked. Brett’s sky-rocketed up 37 spots on the final leader board at OFSAA that year to finish fifth in the junior boys race, 22 seconds off the podium.

The 22 second deficit would turn into a 5 second surplus the following year in the senior boys race as Brett would capture his first OFSAA cross country medal. “I was really happy. It was a perfect race,” the Hillcrest student said of his bronze medal.

By the time Brett toed the start line in Odessa for his fourth and final OFSAA cross country run in grade 12 he had finally become the favourite. Coming off a summer that saw him finish 12^th at the World Youth Championships at 1500 metres behind two eventual Olympic finalists and winning the pre-OFSAA race on the same course, he was well positioned for victory and did not disappoint. An eight second victory over Brantford Collegiate’s Cory Currie was a fitting end to a well peaked high school career.

After graduation Brett accepted a scholarship to Villanova University to study electrical engineering and run for the Wildcats. After a year in Philadelphia, Brett transferred to the University of Guelph where he would go on to earn a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. Running for the Gryphons, Brett was a two time OUA champion in cross country, a four time first team All-Canadian and helped lead his school to four consecutive CIS team titles. Brett works as a research technician at the Running Injury Clinic in Calgary.

The top half of our countdown continues with number five, Shona McCulloch of Longfields Davidson Heights Secondary School. The Barrhaven native was a dominate force during her four year high school career, twice capturing the provincial title and picking up a bronze as good measure.

Undefeated all four years at the city level, McCulloch captured her first gold medal in quite dramatic fashion at the 2013 Championship in Sudbury. McCulloch quickly surged to the front of the wet and muddy course, running with a pack of four other pre-race favourites through the first half of the three kilometre course. Near the halfway mark, Shona and Kylee Raftis of Bishop Strachan pulled away, running stride for stride right to the finish line. A surge in the final meters gave McCulloch the gold even as the pair of runners shared the same finishing time.

McCulloch would make it back to back titles a year later in Waterloo winning the four-kilometre race in 14 minutes and 43.5 seconds. Despite the narrow five second margin of victory, Coach Kirk Dillabaugh said the race was never really in question. “Shona won the junior girls’ race about a mile into it,” Dillabaugh told the Ottawa Sports Page at the time. “She was the favourite going in and a little nervous. Then she found herself alone for most of the race.”

Unfortunately for McCulloch, the quest for a three peat ended about 600 metres from the finish line of the senior girls race the following season. The grade 11 student, who had yet to be defeated in her high school cross country career, had been in a tight battle with eventual champion Maddie Ghazarian, but unfortunately  encountered some difficulties and collapsed in the final kilometre of the race and would not finish.

A determined McCulloch returned a year later primed for another run for gold. Coming off a nearly 50 second victory over training partner Mei Mei Weston to capture the city title, McCulloch was looking in top form. Again, the Longfields Davidson student found herself at the front of the pack at the end of the five-kilometre race, this time running side by side with Havergal’s Martha MacDonald. However, McCulloch once more ran into difficulties in the home stretch and stumbled 150 metres from the finish line. With next to nothing left in the tank, the two time champion willed her way to the line, but was nipped just before crossing and settled for bronze.

Following graduation, Shona accepted a scholarship to the University of Washington to run for the Huskies. After red-shirting her freshman year, she has helped Washington qualify for back-to-back NCAA Championships in cross country, where the Huskies have finished 9^th and 11^th respectively. In addition to her contributions to the cross country program, McCulloch has also ran well on the track, taking up the 3000 metre steeplechase where she was an NCAA West Regional qualifier in 2019 and has posted the seventh fastest time in school history.

Ranking in at number seven on our list is the first of three Hillcrest High School graduates to make the grade, Danelle Woods. The owner of one OFSAA crown, Woods was always fighting for the podium in the fall championship, never finishing lower than seventh.

After being recruited to join the Hillcrest team by her older brother Mike in grade nine, Woods would win her first of four straight NCSSAA championships to qualify for the provincial championships where she would place seventh in the midget girls event.

With a year of training under her belt, Woods would return to OFSAA and find a spot on the podium, taking the bronze on the 4km course, just four seconds behind future Olympian Sheila Reid. A year later, it would be Reid in front of Woods again on the podium. However, in their first year in the senior ranks it was Reid’s Sacred Heart team that would best Woods’ Hawks of Hillcrest by a mere point – 198 to 199. The difference, Reid’s silver medal run put her three spots ahead of Woods in 5^th.

In her final OFSAA run, would get the one title that had eluded both runners – OFSAA cross country champion. Woods was the class of the field that day in Thunder Bay as she would run to victory over the five-kilometre course in 19 minutes and 7.15 seconds – more than 10 seconds ahead of Reid in second.

After graduating from Hillcrest, Woods accepted a scholarship to the University of Illinois where she would run for the Illini and study economics. During her time in Urbana-Champaign, Woods won Big 10 Freshman of the Year in cross country and helped the Illini twice qualify for the NCAA Championships. She also garnered All-America honours indoors as part of the distance medley relay. Following graduation, Woods tried her hand at the marathon, posting a lifetime best of 2 hours 49 minutes and 33 seconds. She currently works as a customer management manager in Chicago.