The Lions wrapped up their two stop Montreal tour last night with La Classique d’Athlétisme de Montréal, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze event, with a pair of victories from Farah Jacques and Melissa Bishop-Nriagu.
Jacques, running under much better conditions than the rain storm that fell on the national final three days earlier, bested Mariam Abdul-Rashid in the tightest finish of the evening. The pair of runners were awarded equal times of 13.28 seconds, but it was Jacques who was able to out lean Abdul-Rashid, by just eight thousandths of a second, for gold.
Since returning from an early season competition tour in the United States, Jacques has seen a continual improvement in her results on the track including last night’s performance, which was the fourth fastest of her career. The 2016 Olympic finalist will be waiting this week to see if her efforts were strong enough to earn her another spot on Canada’s 4×100 metre relay team in Tokyo.
For Melissa Bishop-Nriagu, her spot in Tokyo is secure, and she has been using the recent series of domestic competitions to work on racing tactics in her run for an Olympic medal. The tactics were working well Tuesday night as she was victorious over an almost identical field to the OIympic Trials in a time of two minutes and 1.69 seconds.
Next up for the decorated runner will be the Monaco Diamond League event on July 9th followed by the London Diamond League four days later. The first round of the 800 metres in Tokyo goes in one month from today.
In the men’s 1500 metres, Robert Mitchell set a new lifetime best of 3:59.08 to finish eighth in the open section. This was Mitchell’s first time cracking four minutes in the 1500. The open women’s 400 metres was won by Alexandra Telford in 57.51 seconds. It was the second fastest time of Telford’s life in her first race since February 2020.
Rounding out the Lions contingent was Stephen Evans who placed sixth in the elite section of the men’s 800 metres with a time of one minute and 52.37 seconds.
Next up for the Lions is the kick off of the 34th annual Summer Twilight Series, which begin tonight at Terry Fox. For more information on upcoming twilight meets, please check out the schedule.