The 2024-2025 Ravens track and field season looks set to be all about hang time.
Ella-Grace Gilbert opened the season for the team at the November inter-squad meet against the University of Ottawa with massive personal bests and new Ravens records in the triple jump (11.51m) and the long jump (5.28m). With a good month of work to go the RSEQ title and a USport spot looks within reach.
More records fell in the women’s pole vault, with grad school transfer Rosalie Lupien lifting the Ravens best mark to an RSEQ leading height of 3.50m. With four weeks to go to build speed and refine her jumps in this highly technical event Rosalie is in a good spot to qualify for the USport Championships this March and win the conference championships.
Staying in the air for more team frequent flyer miles, Ravens rookie Joshua Foster wasted little time announcing his presence to the Usport world. On his first long jump as a Raven he broke the school record by over a foot and autoqualifed for the USports Championships with a leap of 7.23m. An hour later he returned for the triple jump, breaking the Ravens record by over two feet and landing at 5th place in the current USports event rankings.
Not to be outdone by the jumpers, last year’s USport finalist and RSEQ champion Brianna Asiamah started the season off by missing her Ravens record by a scant centimeter. With a USports autoqualifier distance in hand she’s since been training hard and throwing darts over the 13m barrier like clockwork, suggesting big throws are coming.
At the conference level new things are happening with RSEQ requiring achievement of a qualifying standard to guarantee a spot at the Championships. Early in the season Ella-Grace Gilbert, Rose Basu, and Michaella Appiah-Kubi have claimed lanes in the 60m Moving up to the 300m Michaella is joined by Laura Cross, and in the field former Ravens record holder Adelle MacLeod is locked in for the triple jump with Ella-Grace, and Rosalie is set for pole vault. Despite the relatively small size of the team the Ravens women are currently ranked 5th in RSEQ.
On the men’s side of the team Ravens shot put record holder and 2024 USports finalist Connor Fraser is sitting in twelfth place in the national rankings. If he gets close to his school record he should comfortably book a return ticket to the national championships. At the conference level the men currently sit sixth in RSEQ, with Joshua Foster and Osaze Osawe having autoqualified in triple jump, Josh again in LJ, Joel Paluska in high jump, Connor and John Grieve in shot put, and Lachlan Mahan in the 600m.
Next up are a pair of meets next weekend with some of the team going to the McGill Team Challenge in Montreal on the Friday and the long sprinters and distance runners heading to St Lawrence University in New York State for competition on the flat 200m track.
