Posts tagged: sprints

At number four on our list of the all-time OFSAA performers, we have the fastest woman in Canadian high school sports, Ashley Purnell. Running for the Lions of St. Mark, Purnell had a short but successful high school track and field career that included five OFSAA medals including two golds.

Unlike just about every other athlete on this list, Purnell’s spring focus in high school started off with touch football where she was a dominant force because of her speed. After some prodding from high school and future club mate, Sara Sowieta, Purnell joined her high school team in grade 10, but a conflict with a touch football game ended up causing Purnell to miss her 100m final at the Carleton Board meet and ended her season before it really got started.

Come grade 11, Purnell had made the decision to focus on track, joining Coach Hugh Conlin’s training group with the Lions and within months quickly became a threat at OFSAA. While it didn’t result in any medals, she was led qualifying in the 100 and 200 metres and was second across the line in the 300 metre hurdle final before a lane violation left her disqualified her.

As a first year senior in 2001, Purnell had a go at the 100/200/100 hurdle treble. Unfortunately for her she finished second in the 100 and 200 metre final to 2005 World Championship team member Toyin Olupona and also took silver in the hurdles behind 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Priscilla Lopes.

In the summer season that followed, Purnell would sweep all three races at the Canadian U20 Championships and sweep the 100 and 200 metres at the Canada Summer Games to set up a record breaking campaign during her final high school season.

The first record came during the East Regional competition where the St. Mark runner blew away the competition, breaking Angela Bailey’s 21 year old Canadian Interscholastic Record of 11.60 seconds with an 11.54 second clocking. A week later at the OFSAA Championships in Belleville, Purnell would equal the time to claim her first OFSAA gold by more than four tenths of a second.

A day later in the 200 metre final, Purnell would find a golden finish to her high school career as she crossed the line in a blistering 23.47 seconds, almost seven tenths ahead of silver. While the time surpassed the Canadian Interscholastic Record of 23.58, a trailing wind of +4.7 metres per second nullified the mark. It was the second time on the day that the wind had blown away her record attempts as Purnell had bested the OFSAA record of 24.05 with a time of 23.92 in the heats when the wind was registered a positive 2.4 m/s.

Later that summer Purnell would represent Canada at the World U20 Championships in Jamaica where she would place 8th in the 200 metre final behind the likes of Sanya Richards-Ross and Alyson Felix. She had qualified for the final after setting a Club record of 23.28 seconds in the preliminaries.

That fall, Purnell would head west to Stanford University where she would compete for the Cardinal. During her time in Palo Alto she broke the school’s indoor 400m record and earned All-American honours in the 4×400 metre relay. After graduating from Stanford, Purnell returned home to complete doctoral work in neuroscience at the University of Ottawa before completing a second doctorate in exercise physiology from the University of Nantes. She recently founded her own company in Ottawa, Neurovine, which helps concussion patients recover.

At number five on our list of all-time OFSAA performers is sprinter and hurdler, Oluwasegun Makinde. The Colonel By graduate was a force to be recokoned with during his four years wearing the blue and white of the Cougars, cementing himself as one of the best high school 200 metre racers the country has ever known.

In total, Makinde took home eight medals from the OFSAA Track and Field Championships, led by four golds. After a bronze at 200 metres in grade nine, Makinde took home his first title in front of a home crowd at Terry Fox Athletics Facility in grade 10, winning the 200 in a new OFSAA junior boys record of 21.74 seconds. Finishing on his heels was Philip Hayle who had taken the 100 metre crown the day before, one spot ahead of Makinde. That OFSAA Championships was the beginning of a great battle between the two athletes over the next three years.

The battle at 200 metres reversed itself a year later with Hayle (21.70) taking victory over Makinde’s (21.84) silver as the pair battled through a strong headwind. Makinde’s grade 11 year was also where we saw him make his debut in the hurdles. In just his first year in the event, the Colonel By student captured bronze behind clubmate Sekou Kaba’s gold and narrowly (0.01 seconds) ahead of future Olympic high jump champion Derek Drouin.

Makinde ended his high school career with a bang, capturing three gold medals at OFSAA despite not competing in one of his best events, the 100 metres. At the East Regional Championships, Makinde made a serious run at the then 25 year old Canadian Interscholastic 100 metre record (10.41 seconds) with his victory in 10.47 seconds. Scratching the event at OFSAA, allowed him to focus on the 200 metres, hurdles and 4×100 relay.

Makinde’s first medal of his final Championship came in the 110 metre hurdles, where he became the third Lion to take hold of the Canadian Interscholastic Record in the event, although this was the first time it was over the shorter 36 inch hurdles. Makinde’s time of 13.36 seconds was less than a tenth ahead of World Youth medalist in the event, Gregory MacNeil, who would over take the record a year later.

A couple hours after his hurdles gold, Makinde helped his Cougar teammates claim gold in the 4×100 metre relay, the first for an Ottawa school in decades, as they edged out Hayle’s Sir Edmund Campion team. Also on the team were Makinde’s brother Toluwalope, Gurvir Khosa and Cameron Smithers, all Lions members.

Makinde capped off his high school career with a performance for the ages, becoming the first athlete to eclipse the 21 second barrier for 200 metres, crossing the line in 20.99 seconds, and taking more than a third of a second off of Atlee Mahorn’s 35 year old OFSAA record. The performance also fell just four hundredths short of Mahorn’s Canadian High School Record of 20.95.

Since leaving high school, Makinde has twice been a member of the Canadian Olympic 4x100m Relay Team and has also represented the nation at a variety of other international events, including taking gold in the 200 metres at the 2013 Francophone Games in France. In addition to his international success on the track, Makinde is a graduate of the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. During his time as a Gee Gee he captured six medals at the USports Championships including a record in the 4×200 metre relay.

Currently Makinde is training for his third Olympic team where he hopes to represent Canada in the 110 metre hurdles.