As the summer track and field season wraps up it is time for a quick review of some major achievements of past and present Carleton Ravens at the Canadian and Ontario Championships.
The biggest prizes went to Ravens alum Maria Okwechime and to second year student Connor Fraser.
Connor dominated the Canadian Championships U20 shot put competition to claim the national title with a personal best toss of 17.11m. Lifetime bests were also the story of Connor’s success at the Athletics Ontario Championships. A last round comeback throw of 50.00m secured him the discus title and a personal best. The next day saw another personal best and provincial title for Connor, this time in the shot put.
Maria Okwechime ended her first full season as a long jumper by overcoming a persistent hamstring strain to record the longest jumps at the Canadian National Championships. Alas, the rules prevented her from collecting the gold medal because the podium places are reserved for Canadian citizens; Maria is Nigerian. Still, her win was convincing and included a wind-legal personal best to round a season that is fast seeing 6m plus performances her norm.
Carleton Ravens record holder in the 300m and 60m hurdles Alexandra Telford had a breakthrough summer. At the Ontario Championships she took home the 400m hurdles title just days after returning from a very successful European tour that saw her lower her 400m personal best to 53.79 seconds. Two weeks later at the Canadian Championships Alexandra was heartbreakingly close to a medal, missing the podium by just two hundredths of a second, running a personal best of 58.51 seconds. Successes in Europe and her new personal best were enough to put Alexandra on the Athletics Canada standby list for the World Championships and, while she was ultimately not selected for the team, earn her a world ranking of 206 in her main event.
U SPORTS triple jump finalist and Ravens record holder Adam Nurradeen continued his exploration of the three-bound, netting a new personal best and bronze medal at the Ontario Championships with a leap of 14.03m. Another recent Ravens grad, Michael Pinnock, also used the Ontario Championships to lay down some new personal bests, running 10.81 in the 100m and 21.80 in the 200m. Freshman sprinter Ella-Grace Gilbert set personal bests in both the 100m and the 200m this summer, including a near best for the 200m into a hurricane headwind at the National Championships. Other Ravens rewriting their personal record books included Laura Cross in the 800m and Kaiden Peldjak in the hammer throw.
Alexandra Telford (Ravens record holder in the 300m and 60m hurdles; Usport medalist) ended her season with a bang, combining with three Ottawa Lions teammates to take 11.47 seconds of the Canadian Club record for the mixed 4x400m relay.
Ravens Track and Field Training for the 2023-2024 season is set to start on September 11, 2023.
