By: Sean Burges (Carleton Track & Field)
After the Carleton Ravens Track and Field Team raced on the massive 400m indoor track in Ottawa two weeks ago, they had a change of pace as they travelled to McGill – hosts of this year’s RSEQ Championships – to compete in the McGill Team Challenge on the standard 200m indoor track.
Despite a really tricky throwing circle that saw a lot of competitors lose their footing and stumble into a foul, it was the field eventers who helped carry the team to a ninth place showing in a field of fourteen university squads. Rookie Samuel Chilima fouled a monster first-round effort in the triple jump but nevertheless secured a silver medal in the collegiate section. Another freshman, Connor Fraser, leaned heavily on the advice of his coach, Canadian shot put Olympian Tim Nedow, to net a bronze medal in the university section. Other point scorers in the field included Kaiden Peldjak and Kendal Williams in the weight throw.
Good things were happening on the track, too. The school record-setting 4x800m relay quartet took a week off from stick passing to focus on their individual events. In the 600m Laura Cross threw down a massively aggressive move in the final fifty meters to open up space for a strong kick and an improvement of over a second and a half on her PB. A couple of hours later she turned around a dropped another personal best, this time with a winning effort in her 300m heat. Fellow 4x800m record holder Pippa Norris was also getting into that PB groove, pushing out to a PB of over a second in the 1500m and giving signs that she might just take out the Ravens event record with the right race at the RSEQ championships. Other personal bests at the meet included Michael Pinnock and Thomas Kanique in the 300m.
