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Championship Weekend Results Roundup

Championship season kicked off for Canadian cross-country runners with university conference championships unfolding nationwide this past weekend.

At the OUA Championships in North Bay, the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees battled to a pair of 12th-place finishes in both the men’s and women’s team races. On the men’s side, the Gee-Gees finished just 11 points behind Laurentian for 11th place, led by second-year computer science student Zachary Sikka, who completed the demanding 8-kilometre course in 26:36.3 to place 44th overall. 

Nic Abanto Enns and Will McLeish supported the team effort with 56th and 63rd-place finishes, each finishing within a minute of Sikka. Adriano Padoin-Castillo and Fred Parent rounded out the scoring for Ottawa in 69th and 85th place, respectively.

On the women’s side, Melina Hamel continued her standout season, leading Ottawa with a 34th-place finish in 31:03.8, one of her strongest races of the year. Teammate Kylee Fowler followed closely in 54th place, with Elliot Tyman, Grace Farrington, and Katerina Culhane rounding out the scoring spots in 88th, 89th, and 90th, respectively.

Queen’s standout Lizzy Vroom, a former USport Rookie of the Year, captured a 12th-place individual finish in 29:31.6, earning her Second Team OUA All-Star honours and helping the Gaels to silver in the overall standings. 

First-year Guelph Gryphon Jocelyn Giannotti, making her OUA Championships debut, placed 48th, crossing in 31:46.3 as the fourth-fastest rookie in the championship.

At the RSEQ Championships in Saint-Lazare, Quebec, the Carleton Ravens were represented by Sara Gross and Sydney Nielsen, with Gross clocking 34:33.2 for 71st place while Nielsen was 95th. Racing for McGill, Zoe Gardiner contributed to a team bronze for the Martlets with a 27th-place finish in 31:32.4. 

The RSEQ Championship also featured a high school section, where brothers Noah and Zachary Mansouri swept the podium’s top two spots. Noah claimed gold on the 5-kilometre course in 15:58.9 with Zachary finishing 7.5 seconds back.

Out west, UBC Okanagan’s Kyle Porter competed at the Can-West Championships in Camrose, AB, placing 50th in 27:49.6 over the 8-kilometre course. 

Next up for Canada’s top university athletes will be the USports Championships on November 9th in Kelowna, BC.

Full results from the OUA Championship can be found here: OUA

RSEQ Championships results can be found here: Men Women

Can-West Championship results can be found here: Can West

(Windsor, Canada---23 February 2024) David Adeleye competing on Day 1 of the 2024 OUA Track And Field Championships in the Dennis Fairall Fieldhouse on the campus of the University of Windsor.

Copyright 2024 Miles Ryan Rowat / Mundo Sport Images.

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Adeleye’s U23 record leads four medal haul from OUA Championships

This year’s OUA Track and Field Championships were a bit of a breakthrough out party for fourth year hurdler David Adeleye. Almost hard to believe for a man in his final year of undergraduate study who holds medals in the sprint hurdles from both USports and the Canadian outdoor championships. 

However, in Friday night’s 60 metre hurdle final, Adeleye did something that had escaped in his previous two attempts – he found his way on to the medal podium at the OUA Championship. In what was likely a preview of the USports final, David took home the silver medal in a club U23 record 7.88 second while the University of Guelph’s Craig Thorne was first across the line in 7.76. 

Adeleye was not the only Lion’s hurdler competing for the Varsity Blues to put forward a breakthrough performance. Paulina Procyk laid down back-to-back lifetime bests in the semi-finals and final to finish fifth overall with a blazing time of 8.63 seconds. The performance puts Procyk sixth on the Club’s U23 all-time list and qualified her for the USports Championship.

For the second year in a row, Lizzy Vroom helped Queen’s University to a bronze medal and  school record in the 4×800 metre relay. However, Vroom was not the only Lion helping the Gaels make a 4×800 podium. First year commerce student Nolan Legare led off the men’s squad as they ran a seasonal best of 7:43.33 to claim the silver medal and secure their spot at the USports Championship.

In the penultimate event of the Championship the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s 4×400 metre relay team captured the school’s sole medal of the championship. Running out of the “slow” section, the quartet of Kathryn Moreland, Katie Manor, Sia Mahajan, and Doyin Ogunremi posted a time of 3:55.34, a scant one one hundredth off their seasonal best, to place ahead of Lakehead University. The Gee-Gees last medal in the 4×400 had come nearly a decade ago at the 2015 championships.

While the Gee-Gees were only able to produce one podium finish, they did post their fair share of near misses. In total, the Gee-Gees produced five fourth place finishes over the two day event.

Kicking off the wave of near medal performances was shot putter Jessica Gyamfi on Friday night. The second year nursing student came as close as one could possibly imagine to the podium. With a personal best effort of 12.83 metres, Gyamfi actually finished in a tie for bronze, but lost on the count back as her second best throw was a single centimetre behind that of Guelph’s Meghan Mori. 

Shortly after Gyamfi, Kathryn Moreland culminated the five discipline pentathlon with a fourth place finish. The second year student could take solace in the fact she too set a personal best – amassing a total of 3333 points. 

Doyin Ogunremi, followed as the next event on the track in the 300 metres.The graduating senior posted her fastest time ever on a 200 metre track, crossing the line in 39.77 seconds. Unfortunately for Ogunremi, Western’s Tieghan Wallace narrowly edged her out from the previous heat of the event by a scant five hundredths of a second. 

On the final day of competition, sprinter Katie Manor was part of two fourth place finishes. Over 60m, the third year student lost a tight battle with York’s Janae Brown on the line – 7.54 to 7.56 seconds. Later in the day, Manor led off a Gee-Gees 4×200 metre squad that included Emma Martins, Doyin Ogunremi, and Bianca Borgella which finished in 1:43.07, to finish one place off the podium.

Full results from the championship can be found on our website.

Updated rankings are also available:

Ottawa Lions
University of Ottawa Gee-Gees
Carleton University Ravens

(Ottawa, Canada---30 September 2023) Elizabeth Vroom (623 W) of the Queen's University Golden Gaels races at the 2023 Capital XC Challenge at Mooney’s Bay Park in Ottawa. Photograph Copyright 2023 Sean Burges / Mundo Sport Images.

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Alie-Lamarche and Vroom named OUA All-Stars; Baggley wins AUS Rookie of the Year

While the final weekend in October usually has most people consumed with Halloween preparations, we were busy with cross country championships. It was conference championship season for universities on both sides of the border this weekend with some very notable performances by some Lions runners.

Leading the list of performances this weekend, André Alie-Lamarche and Elizabeth Vroom were each recognized as Second Team All-Stars for their finish at the OUA Cross Country Championships in Waterloo. On the East Coast, Olivia Baggley was named women’s Rookie of the Year at the Atlantic University Sport Championships.

As he has done all year, Alie-Lamarche was the top men’s runner for the Gee-Gee’s, placing eighth over the eight-kilometre race. The fourth year student pushed hard to maintain his season long run of podium performances, sitting fourth heading into the final two-kilometres. Despite dropping back in the final standings, his finish was the best of his OUA career. The Gee-Gee men placed 11th overall as a team, amassing 298 points.

For Vroom, her 14th place finish was a solid improvement on her 25th place finish in 2022. The reigning USports Rookie of the Year was the top finisher for a Queen’s women’s team that placed fourth overall – the first time she’s led the team all season. 

The top runner for the Gee-Gee women was rookie Melina Hamel, who placed 46th overall in a time of 32 minutes and 9.5 seconds.

At the AUS Championships in Halifax, Olivia Baggley placed 10th overall for the University of New Brunswick Reds in a time of 32 minutes and 11 seconds to finish as the highest ranked rookie. Baggley was the third scorer for the Reds, helping them to a second place finish overall. 

Racing at the RSEQ Championships in Rawdon, Quebec, Aria MacDonald was the top finisher for the Carleton Raven women. The third year student was 35th overall in a time of 33:33.9. For the Raven men, David Birinberg was 59th across the line in a time of 28:25.9.

South of the border, Louise Stonham and Maddie Seaby each scored for their respective schools at their conference championship. At the Big West Championship in Nipomo, CA Stonham was the fourth scorer for Long Beach State, finishing the six-kilometre course in 22:12.0 to place 34th. At the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship in Tallahassee, FL Seaby was the fifth scorer for the University of Louisville with her 21:49.2 clocking for 95th. 

For full results, please consult the following websites:

OUA Cross Country Championship

RSEQ Cross Country Championship

AUS Cross Country Championship

Big West Cross Country Championship

ACC Cross Country Championship

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Senechal-Becker shines at OUA Championship with yet another Gee-Gees record

It was a high jump battle for the ages Saturday afternoon in Windsor. With the 4×4 relays wrapped up on the track, the focus turned to the infield of the Dennis Fairall Fieldhouse where the University of Ottawa’s Thomas Senechal-Becker and Toronto’s Aiden Grout put on what could be considered the greatest OUA Championship battle of the century. Unfortunately for Senechal-Becker, not even a third school record in as many weeks was good to secure the gold medal. 

Despite a miss at his opening height, Senechal-Becker’s first attempt clearance at 2.05 metres put the second year health sciences student in the competition’s driver’s seat. With a virtually clean sheet, Thomas would ride the lead right through a new lifetime best clearance of 2.17 metres on his first try. It was at this point things got interesting as Grout, still in second, passed to 2.20 metres for a shot to repeat as OUA champion. 

Despite some strong attempts at 2.20, Senechal-Becker could only watch as Grout pulled out a third attempt clearance for a new lifetime best of his own as the men re-took their same spots on the medal stand from the year before. 

The next highest finish for the Gee-Gees also came from a second year student – Vienna Courteau. Competing in just her second pentathlon, Courteau was firing on all cylinders as she strung together five fine performances, led by an eight centimetre personal best in the high jump, to score a personal best 3226 points and finish fourth overall. 

Just one rung up on the pentathlon leader board was fellow Lion Audrey Goddard, competing for Western University. The first year student recorded a lifetime best of 3564 points on her way to bronze as she secured her spot in the upcoming USports Championship in Saskatoon in just under two weeks. 

In Friday’s 4×800 relay, Lions Gillian Porter and Elizabeth Vroom ran the final two legs for Queen’s University to help propel the Gaels to bronze. Porter took the stick in fifth place and proceeded to run the fastest 800 metres of her life to move Queen’s to fourth before Vroom followed suit with a similar performance to narrowly pass McMaster and find a way on to the podium. 

The pair followed up their relay podium with a pair of personal bests in Saturday’s 1500 metre final. Vroom covered the seven and a half laps in 4 minutes and 35.31 seconds on her way to a fifth place finish. Porter was 13th in 4:42.18.

In the men’s 60 metre hurdles, Club U23 record holder David Adeleye just missed out on the podium. Running for the University of Toronto, the third year human kinetics student ran the third fastest time of his life, 7.97 seconds, to place fourth – just four hundredths off the podium. 

Other notable finishes from the weekend included:

Brianna Asiamah (4th – Shot Put)
Katie Manor (7th – 60m)
Jackson Colquhoun (7th – Triple Jump)
Doyin Ogunremi (8th – 300m)
David Moulongou (8th – 600m)
Katie Manor, Brooklyn McCormik, Kennedy Banton-Lindsay, Doyin Ogunremi (7th – 4x200m)
Katie Manor, Brooklyn McCormik, Kennedy Banton-Lindsay, Doyin Ogunremi (8th – 4x400m)
Fabrice Nonez, Thomas Kukla-Colby, Lucas Zanetti, David Moulongou (8th – 4x400m)

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Gee-Gee Men finish 7th; Women place 8th at OUA XC Championships

For the second year in a row, it was a beautiful day in London for the Ontario University Athletics Cross Country Championship with the sun shining and temperatures reaching 16 degrees. Running on the Thames Valley Golf Course the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees improved their finishing positions for both the men and women from a year ago as they placed seventh and eighth respectively. 

The Gee-Gee women’s finish, their highest since 2015 (7th), was led by rookie Noemie Beauregard. The fourth year Nutrition Sciences student finished the eight kilometre course in 30 minutes and 40 seconds to place 14th overall. Beauregard’s placing earned her Second Team OUA All-Star status – the first by a Gee-Gee since Ruth Burrowes in 2015. 

Nina Gunther was the next Gee-Gee across the finish line as she placed 27th overall in a time of 32:01. The remaining scorers for the Garnet & Grey were Kyler Fowler (60), Elana Tyman (71) and Taylor Brown (72). 

Also on the women’s side, Lions Elizabeth Vroom and Gigi Porter had strong debuts at the OUA Championships for the Queen’s Gaels. The pair of first year students both factored in to the scoring for Queen’s as they placed 25th and 36th respectively as they helped the Gaels to a fourth place finish

On the men’s side, the Gee-Gee’s 183 points put them in seventh place, just one point behind the University of Windsor in sixth. Veteran André Alie-Lamarche was the top finisher, placing 20th overall in a time of 26:01. Crossing the line 32 seconds later was fellow fourth year runner Adrian Fournier as he cracked the top-20 in 28th place. Rounding out the scoring for the Gee-Gees was Nic Roberts (34), Nicolas Abanto Enns (42), and rookie Zach Sikka (59).

For full results for the OUA XC Championships, please visit our results page.

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Smith and Telford golden at conference championships

We expect there was a good amount celebrating at the Smith/Telford residence Sunday night following a golden weekend at their respective university conference championships for the two Lions varsity athletes.Roommates Sydney Smith and Alexandra Telford combined for a trio of gold medals this past weekend at the OUA and RSEQ Championships and did so in rather impressive fashion.

First to the podium was Smith who executed her 600m race strategy to absolute perfection. Biding her time for the first two laps, Smith surged past Guelph’s Sadie-Jane Hickson on the bell lap to capture her first OUA title in a personal best time of 1:30.37. The performance ranks as the sixth fastest in Club history.

The human kinetics graduate student nearly picked up a second medal in the 4×400 metre relay as her speedy anchor leg of 54.64 seconds took the Gee-Gees to within half a second of bronze. However, with their time of 3:51.66, the team of Doyin Ogunremi, Hannah Frazer, Frédérique Bell, and Smith will qualify for the USports Championship in two weeks time.

For Telford, her victories came fast and furious on day two of the Quebec conference championship. The Carleton graduate student began with a personal best effort to take the 60 metre hurdle title in 8.97 seconds. It was part of an Ottawa sweep of the podium, as silver went to fellow Lion Vanessa Lu Langley who is studying at McGill, while bronze went to recent University of Ottawa graduate Stéphanie Lapolice, who is completing graduate work in health promotion at Université Laval.

Less than an hour after her hurdles triumph, Telford was back on the track for the final of the 300 metres and another personal best performance. Her winning time of 38.74 seconds was more than a full second clear of the second place runner. Telford’s time moves her into fifth on the Club’s all-time list as she jumps ahead of two-time Olympian Alicia Brown.

Carleton’s Alec Jeffrey also found his way onto the podium at the RSEQ Championship. The school record holder in the shot put, Jeffrey heaved the shot out to 13.33 metres to claim the silver medal.

Picking up a silver medal at the OUA Championships was the University of Ottawa’s Thomas Senechal-Becker. The first year student cleared 2.02 metres in the high jump.

Another noteworthy performance included Emma Martins’ fifth place finish in the 60 metre final with a personal best time of 7.77 seconds. As well, David Adeleye, running for the University of Toronto, was just off his lifetime best, placing 6th in the 60 metre hurdles in 8.22 seconds, while Jenna Gervais (Western) set a personal best of 9.02 to qualify for the final of the women’s hurdles event, where she would place seventh overall. Finally, Brianna Asiamah just missed her lifetime best by three centimetres in the shot put with a 12.45 metre heave to place seventh.

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(Ottawa, Canada---02 October 2021) L-R,  Andre  Alie-Lamarche (Ottawa Gee-Gees),  Colby  Frost (Ottawa Gee-Gees),  Nikita  Neyshtadt (Ottawa Gee-Gees),  Adrian  Fournier (Ottawa Gee-Gees), and  Gavin  Westbrook (Ottawa Gee-Gees) competing in the University Men’s / Open Men’s race at the  2021 Capital Cross Country Challenge held at Mooney’s Bay in Ottawa.  Photograph 2021 Copyright Sean Burges / Mundo Sport Images

Gee-Gee Men finish 8th; Women finish 10th at OUA XC Championships

It was a perfect day for cross country running this past Saturday at the Thames Valley Golf Course in London, home to this year’s OUA (Ontario University Athletics) Championships. With the sun beaming down and temperatures hovering near 10 degrees centigrade, the University of Ottawa men and women put together solid efforts to place eighth and tenth respectively.

In a tight battle for eighth place, the Gee-Gee men were able to narrowly beat out the Laurier Goldenhawks 245 to 248, reversing the result from two weeks prior at the Bayfront Open in Hamilton where the Goldenhawks had bested the Gee-Gees by two points.

The men were led by Adrian Fournier and his 26th place finish. The third-year civil engineering student has consistently featured among the top two runners for the Gee-Gees all season long, and finished the eight kilometre course in a time of 26 minutes and 26 seconds. Fournier was backed up by André Alie-Lamarche, who finished in 27:04 to place 27th.

Rounding out the scoring for Ottawa were NIcolas Abanto Ens (50th ), Stephen Robinson (51st), and Gavin Westbrook (81st).

The Gee-Gee women fielded one of the youngest squads in the field with five of the six runners in their first year of eligibility en-route to their tenth place finish (312 points).

Top honour for the women went to Skye Pellerin, who placed 52nd overall, as she crossed the line in 33 minutes and 37 seconds. Tiarra Ward, a third year nursing student, was next across the line for Ottawa in 54th (34:14). Other scorers included Kylee Fowler (61st), Elana Tyman (71st), and Audrey McCarthy (74th).