The Gee-Gees track and field team will be represented by twelve student-athletes at the 2018 U SPORTS National Championships at the University of Windsor this Thursday to Saturday.
The championship will be webcast live in French and English at http://sportscanada.tv/usports/2018-track (please note that this requires a subscription).
The Gee-Gees contingent includes the first appearances for uOttawa in the shot put and weight throw individual events, where program record holders Ty Coulter and Christina Hertner will measure themselves against the nation's best. After winning a silver medal in weight throw at the OUA Championships, Coulter added seven centimetres to their personal best last week and enters nationals ranked seventh in the nation with a best throw of 15.87 metres. Coulter, a second-year criminology student, will be the first Gee-Gee to compete, with the weight throw event scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Thursday. Hertner, a second-year social sciences student from London, Ont., broke the 13-metre mark in shot put for the first time last week, and will be looking for a top ten finish at nationals. The shot put is slated for 6:40 p.m. on Friday.
uOttawa's most recent U SPORTS medal came in the hurdles and Kiera Christie-Galloway will try to keep the garnet and grey on the podium. The first-year won silver at the OUA Championship and will line up on the same Dennis Fairall Fieldhouse track where she set her personal best and program record of 8.31 two weeks ago. The 60m hurdles preliminaries will be run at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday with the final set for 5:30 p.m. Christie-Galloway ranks second in the nation heading into competition.
Ottawa's 600m runners Stephen Evans and Madison Clarke return to the U SPORTS Nationals looking to move up from last year's 11th and 9th place finishes, respectively, and will be joined by rookie Maeliss Trapeau. Evans, in particular, has had a fantastic season of progress and comes into nationals with back-to-back sub 1:19.00 races. That includes a massive 1:18.36 time on February 17 which is two full seconds faster than his time at U SPORTS nationals last season. Clarke, a second-year communications student from St. Catharines, Ont., and Trapeau, a biotechnology first-year, have jockeyed for position over the past two months with Clarke earning an OUA bronze medal while Trapeau holds the season's fastest time of 1:30.27. Both will challenge for a top eight finish in Windsor. The 600m prelims will run at 6:45 [women] and 7 p.m. [men] on Thursday with the finals on Saturday at 1:15 and 1:30 p.m., respectively.
Tolu Makinde will mark his return to the U SPORTS Championships after a four-year hiatus. The Master's student in Management was the anchor of the record-setting 4x400m relay team in 2012 and defended the gold medal at the 2013 championship. This season, Makinde will compete in heptathlon, building on his OUA silver-medal performance. The heptathlon events take place Thursday and Friday.
Marie-Eve Dahms, Stephanie Gould, Samantha Klus, Keili Shepherd, and Sophia Skorenky will join Clarke and Trapeau as members of the Gee-Gees 4x400 and 4x800m relay teams.
Live results for the championship will be available at http://www.windsortiming.com/LiveResults/2018/USport/.
