The Gee-Gees track and field team continued competition at the U SPORTS 2018 Track and Field National Championships on Friday, with both first-year hurdler Kiera Christie-Galloway and the women's 4x800 metre relay team narrowly missing out on the podium with fourth place finishes.
Christie-Galloway won her 60m hurdles heat, drawing lane five in the final. She was flanked by a pair of Guelph Gryphons who would take the gold and silver medal sports in record-breaking time. It was the second-place Kendra Leger of Guelph that showed up with a big seasonal best to bump Christie-Galloway off the podium, in tandem with a photo-finish result with Saskatchewan's Katelyn Lehner. At the finish line, the scoreboard showed both Christie-Galloway and Lehner with a time of 8.31. Lehner took the bronze with an official time of 8.305 with Christie-Galloway in fourth at 8.307.
The final event of the day for the Gee-Gees had the 4x800 metre relay team challenging for a medal in the final laps. Sophia Skorenky handed off to Madison Clarke in the pack behind Guelph and Toronto. Clarke helped to distance Ottawa from all but Laval for third place, and handed the baton to Maeliss Trapeau holding third position.
Trapeau laid down the fastest split time [2:08.444] of the entire field for the Garnet and Grey, preserving the third place position as she exchanged with fellow first-year Keili Shepherd. The distance specialist was caught by the Laval Rouge et Or in the second last corner, and crossed the finish line fourth with a team time of 8:54.31.
Tolu Makinde began his second day of heptathlon competition with a blistering performance in the 60-metre hurdles. Makinde clocked in at 8.41, smashing his personal best performance from the OUA Championships by 19 seconds. The time was also under the previous U SPORTS championships record for heptathletes in the 60m hurdles, but was second in the event on Friday. The performance moved Makinde within reach of the rest of the heptathlon field as he opened the day 329 points behind due to missing a score in the long jump.
"After the triple fault you face a decision as to whether you're going to continue competing," said Makinde. "Combined events have so many ups and downs. I was prepared for the event, and almost everything was an up. I decided that I wanted to represent the school well, go out there and put my best forward. I wanted more, but I also couldn't have asked for better performances in the other events because I did the best I could do."
Makinde followed up with a 13.70 clearance in the pole vault. He made the height on his second attempt, after also clearing three lower heights. To wrap things up, the Management Master's student ran a solid 2:58.70 in the 1000m, bringing his competition points total to 4041.
In shot put, Christina Hertner used her third throw to land a 12.13m result. The second-year Gee-Gee from London, Ont., finished tenth overall at her first U SPORTS national championship.
The competition concludes on Saturday with the Gee-Gees represented by Stephen Evans in the men's 600m final at 1:30 p.m., and the women's 4x400m relay team at 3:45 p.m.
For complete results and full schedule information, visit http://www.windsortiming.com/LiveResults/2018/USport/
