TOP CANADIAN PERFORMERS BY EVENT (INDOOR) – 2010
WINTER SEASON – MEN				as of 20 February
EVENT	PERF	NAME	DOB	HOME	POINTS
60 M	6.62	SAM EFFAH	88	CALGARY	1146
200 M	21.14	BRIAN BARNETT	87	TORONTO	1112
300 M	33.25	MICHAEL ROBERTSON	89	OTTAWA	1106
400 M	47.14	JONATHAN REID	87	TORONTO	1102
600 M	1:18.53	MICHAEL ROBERTSON	89	OTTAWA	1073
800 M	1:47.92	KYLE SMITH	85	TORONTO	1142
1000 M	2:23.18	OLIVER COLLIN	89	MONTREAL	1067
1500 M	3:50.13	KYLE BOORSMA	88	TORONTO	1024
MILE	3:58.52	KURT BENNINGER	85	TORONTO	1149
3000 M	7:57.15	JUSTIN MARPOLE BIRD	88	VANCOUVER	1095
5000m	14:02.4	MATT BRUCE	89	TORONTO	1035
60 MH	7.74	JARED MACLEOD	80	WINNIPEG	1141
PV	5.50	JASON WURSTER	84	TORONTO	1110
HJ	2.25	MIKE MASON	86	VANCOUVER	1108
LJ	7.81	BRIAN CHIBUDU	88	OTTAWA	1086
TJ	15.47	JACOB ZORZELLA	90	TORONTO	990
SP	20.85	DYLAN ARMSTRONG	81	KAMLOOPS	1171
HEP	5011	DEREK DROUIN	90	ONTARIO	940

This was definitely a weekend to be loved if you were a track and field fan in Canada on Valentine’s Day. Canadian records fell from the sky like kisses for handful of Canadian athletes. Dylan Armstrong of Kamloops, BC started the trend in Leipzig with his 20.90m shot put.

For a short time, Carly Dockendorf of Coquitlam, BC thought she had broken the National record in the pole vault in Seattle with her 4.42m jump breaking the existing record of 4.41m set in 2007 by Dana Buller only to find that Kelsie Hendry of Saskatoon had cleared 4.45m in Colorado Springs.

Tabia Charles of Toronto jumped 6.60m in Ithaca, NY to break the current mark of 6.57m set by Krysha Bayley in 2005. This gives Tabia a perfect set, now holding the Canadian marks both indoor and outdoor at the long and triple jump. Finally, Mohammed Ahmed of St. Catherine’s, Ontario broke the Canadian Junior record in the 5000m. The freshman at the University of Wisconsin ran 14:05.59 in Seattle on Saturday.

Dylan Armstrong launched the shot put 20.85 meters in Leipzig last night to break the Canadian record of 20.32 meters set 12 years ago by Brad Snyder.

Christian Cantwell of the US took first place in the German competition. The 2009 world champion threw 21.61 meters.

Dylan threw 21.04 meters in Beijing Olympics to narrowly miss the bronze medal. The 29-year-old British Columbian from Kamloops now holds both indoor and outdoor Canadian records.

Eric Gillis’s long awaited marathon debut was well worth the wait, as Gillis blazed to an eighth-place finish at the Houston Marathon on January 17, 2010.

Gillis from Antigonish, NS finished the race in two hours, 13 minutes and 56 seconds.

In near perfect conditions, Gillis stuck to his pre-race plan as he moved through the first 30 kilometres on pace for a 2:14.30 debut. Over the last six miles Gillis began to gradually pick up his pace, with his last four miles being progressively faster, finishing with mile 26 being his fastest of the race.

Gillis’s run ranks him 14th all-time in Canadian history and is the third fastest time performance by a Canadian since 1996.

Ethiopia’s Teshome Gelana won the race in a time of 2:07:37.

Video link to Eric Gillis

www.flotrack.org/videos/speaker/620-gillis-eric

Top Ten Canadian Performers 2010

winter Season- Men As of January 23

1144 points 2:13.52 Mara Eric Gillis’80

1137 points 1:02.47 ½ Mara Simon Baru’83

1125 points 6.66 60m sam effah’88

1112 points 7.84 60mh jared macleod’80

1110 points 7.85 60mh Karl Jennings’79

1108 points 4:01.64 mile tim konoval ‘84

1106 points 33.25 300m Michael robertson ‘89

1102 points 19.70 dylan armstrong’81

1098 points 2.24 hj derek Drouin’’90

1089 points 6.73 60m akeem haynes’92

Edwards shines at New Balance Games

January 23, 2010
By Mihira Lakshman

Nicole Edwards at the New Balance Games in New York City on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010.

Winnipeg’s Nicole Edwards was the top Canadian performer at the prestigious New Balance Games in New York City on Saturday.

Edwards, a student at the University of Michigan, finished second in the women’s elite mile, in a time of 4:29.42.

American Erin Donohue won the race in 4:28.92.

Hilary Stellingwerff, of Guelph’s Speed River track club, was fifth in 4:34.28.

video link to Nicole edwards

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/236328-2010-new-balance-games-elite-mile/274645-nicole-edwards-on-her-training-so-far-after-the-elite-mile-at-the-new-balance-games

Top Ten Canadian Performers 2010

winter Season- Women As of January 23

1152 points 4:29.42 mile Nicole Edwards’86

1142 points 8.12 60mh priscilla lopes schliep’82                    

1132 points 8.13 60mh Perdita Felicien’80

1117 points 4:34.28 mile Hilary stellingwerf’81

1116 points 53.34 400m carlene muir’87

1107 points 4:35.72 mile amber mcgowan’83

1107 points 7.38 60m toyin olupona’83

1102 points 4:36.44 mile megan metcalfe’82

1096 points 7.42 60m loudia laarman’91

1089 points 6.47 lj alice falaiye’78

This information is not affiliated or endorsed by Athletics Canada

Corrections: Contact dclement007@mac.com

Forever Olympians, Class of ’56 takes up torch

They rose to athletics excellence in Melbourne, but Canada’s

team was just getting started

Iain MacIntyre, Vancouver Sun: Saturday, January 23, 2010

The great thing about going to an Olympics, Doug Kyle says, is you never stop being an Olympian.

“It’s like climbing Mount Everest,” he says. “You may be a champion of something, and then someone else wins and you’re the ex-champion. But you can never be an ex-Olympian. You are an Olympian forever.”

Forever Olympians, forever teammates, most of Canada’s track-and-field team from the 1956 Melbourne Olympics are reuniting this weekend in Trail to carry the torch towards the 2010 Games in Vancouver.

All are in their 70s, most nearer to 80. They were little more than grown kids 53 years ago when they met in Melbourne. They never stopped being Olympians. But they have been other things, too, and their accomplishments since 1956 seem at least as remarkable as their Olympic achievements. Their lives appear to have been well-lived.

Kyle, a former distance runner from Calgary who held 10 Canadian records, founded the Calgary Track Club when he wasn’t searching for oil as a geologist.

Laird Sloan, a quarter-miler from Montreal, holds five engineering degrees and worked on the Avro Arrow before its termination forced him to the U.S. aerospace industry and something called NASA, for which he helped design and build mission control in Houston.

Maureen Rever DuWors, a sprinter from Regina, became the first woman in the biology faculty at the University of Saskatchewan and has been at the school for 40 years.

Sprinter Diane Clement, who grew up in Moncton and has lived in Vancouver for nearly 50 years, co-founded the Richmond Kajaks Track Club with husband Dr. Doug Clement. She was the first female president of a national track and field organization when she headed Athletics Canada during the 1976 Olympics.

Her husband, a runner, helped coach more than 20 athletes to the Olympics and is world-renowned in the field of sports medicine.

Toronto high-jumper and physiology professor Ken Money merely became an astronaut, acting as operations controller on a spacelab mission.

“We’re certainly an over-educated group of people,” Sloan laughs.

It was his idea, in 2007, to try to get Canada’s 1956 Olympic track team together to carry the torch. Sloan, who in retirement divides his time between Houston and New Brunswick, was a torchbearer for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

For 2010, he handed the baton to Kyle. A letter to the Canadian Olympic Association from Kyle went unanswered, but relay sponsor Coca-Cola loved the idea and assigned 20 relay positions.

Twelve of the 18 athletes who ran, jumped and threw for Canada in Melbourne are in Trail. All but Doug Clement, who will be one of the torchbearers on the relay’s final approach to BC Place Stadium on Feb. 12 and isn’t allowed to run twice, will carry the Olympic flame about 50 metres on Sunday.

Kyle filled out his group with athletes from earlier and later Olympics and a few family members of Olympians.

“When I first got the call, I thought: I don’t know if I want to go all that way out there,” Ottawa shot and discus thrower Jackie MacDonald says. “But everyone said: ‘Oh, you have to go.’ It’s a connection with one another from an Olympic Games 53 years ago. It’s a tremendous experience in your life. This is such a lovely opportunity to be connected again with the Olympics. It will be great fun at this late stage.”

MacDonald — the “blond bombshell” on the team, according to Diane Clement — kept up with her class by obtaining a Master’s degree in linguistics. She devoted her life to teaching and coaching.

“There were four women on our relay team and we had to if you followed the careers of to-day’s make it on our own initiative,” DuWors says. “I came from Regina; there wasn’t even a track there. There was no support for athletes back then. You had to be pretty determined to do it, and I think that determination spread over the rest of your life.

“Once you have that kind of experience, you feel you can do anything you set your mind to no matter what problems come up. It seems everyone has done some really interesting things.”

She says the Olympics were ” quite different a half-century “After 50 years, to come together ago, with far less media again to carry the torch coverage. … we feel like we are representing

“And security consisted mainly Canada again,” Kyle says. of keeping the men away from “For two weeks in 1956 in Australia, the women,” MacDonald says. we were a family. There

Clearly, there were breaches. were 18 who made the team. Did we mention Diane and And we were a team.” Doug Clement met on the Olympic team?

Female runners in 1956 were not allowed to race more than 200 metres.

“They thought women could not run farther than that because there would be [medical] problems, they couldn’t bear children,” Diane says. “We proved them wrong.”

Sloan remembers a Canadian official thought it would be great to have athletes march into the stadium like they knew what they were doing.

“So they hired this drill sergeant from the Australian army to teach us to march,” he says. “They sent him to the Olympic village and he had our whole team out in front, everyone from a four-foot-11 gymnast to a six-foot-eight basketball player. He had us marching around. After about two hours, he threw up his hands and left. We probably weren’t the best soldiers he ever saw.”

Doug Clement is the chef-demission in Trail. He solicited biographies and photos from everyone involved and set up a website so members of the ’56 team could get to know each other again. Officially, Doug is the team photographer this weekend.

The Melbourne 12 include retired teachers Terry Tobacco of Victoria, Alice (Whitty) Simicak of Vancouver and Margaret Tosh of Saskatoon, as well as Murray Cockburn and Stan Levenson from Toronto.

“I say this with some reserve, but there weren’t any lawyers in the group, no business magnates,” Doug Clement says. “Every one of these people has made major contributions to their communities. And it has nothing necessarily to do with wealth. There was a lot of giving to life in general.

“There has been such a gradual transition from pure amateurism to pure professionalism, I would be shocked if this sort of thing occurred today — that

Olympians for the next 53 years, that the accomplishments would be the same.”

Diane Clement figures there will be “more tears than snowflakes falling” when the group reunites tonight and tomorrow.

“[Going to the Olympics] is a little like going to war in terms of the heightened emotions and intensity,” Doug says. “It draws people together, and only those who were there know what it was like. In some ways, it’s life-changing.

Read it on Global News: Forever Olympians, Class of ’56 takes up torch

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2009

Athletics Canada announces 2009 Award Recipients at Awards Gala

VANCOUVER – Athletics Canada announced today the winners of its annual awards at the 2009 Awards Gala presented by Mondo. Held in Vancouver, BC, the ceremony coincides with the 2009 Technical Congress. Congratulations to all recipients, finalists and nominees.

Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, Whitby, ON

· Jack W. Davies Trophy – Outstanding Overall Athlete of the Year

· Phil A. Edwards Memorial Trophy – Outstanding Athlete of the Year in Track Events

· Cal D. Bricker Memorial Trophy – Single Outstanding Performance of the Year

Priscilla’s incredible performances throughout the year, highlighted by her silver medal at the IAAF World Championships in the 100 metre hurdles, aided her in capturing these three awards. She was the world leader for over a month (May 8 to June 20), as well as bettered her own personal best on numerous occasions. To close her season Priscilla placed fourth in one of athletics’ most competitive events at the World Athletics Final in a race where 2nd through 5th place registered identical finishing times.

Sultana Frizell, Perth, ON

· F.N.A. Rowell Trophy – Outstanding Athlete of the Year in Field Events

Sultana started the outdoor season with a bang breaking and then bettering her Canadian Record. Her strong performances took her to her first World Championships where she finished 10th and was the first Canadian women to ever make it into a World Championship hammer throw final.

Diane Roy, Hatley, QC

· Outstanding Para-Athlete of the Year – Wheelchair Award

Three-time Canadian Champion in 2009, Diane Roy, a T54 classification wheelchair racer captured the national titles in the 400, 800 and 1500 metre events. Diane also won bronze at the Boston Marathon, silver medals at the Swiss Open (in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m) and captured gold and bronze medals at the Daniela Jutzeler Memorial in the 400m and 1500m respectively.

Brianne Theisen, Humboldt, SK

· Combined Events Athlete of the Year

For her first time ever on the World stage Brianne Theisen took on seven events in the Heptathlon at the World Championships, finishing 15th and setting three event personal bests along the way. For the University of Oregon Brianne captured the bronze at the NCAA Indoor Championships, and Gold while setting a personal best at the NCAA Outdoor Championships; she holds four records for Oregon including the Heptathlon, Pentathlon, 60 metre hurdles and 100 metre hurdles. She is the 2009 Canadian Champion in the Heptathlon.

James Steacy, Lethbridge, AB

· Dr. Fred Tees Memorial Trophy – Outstanding Athlete enrolled in a Canadian University

The highlight of Jim’s year was stepping on the podium at Summer Universiade (FISU) with a silver medal hanging from his neck; Jim was also the Canadian team flag bearer for the opening ceremonies. His strong season included two Canada West Championships gold medals in the shot put and weight throw. Jim was undefeated in the weight throw for his entire University career and undefeated in the shot put this season, he went on to capture the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) titles while breaking another meet, provincial and school record in the weight throw. He was the 2009 Canadian Champion in the hammer throw.

Reid Coolsaet, Hamilton, ON

· Fred Begley Memorial Trophy – Outstanding Athlete of the Year in Off-Track Events

Running in his first marathon ever Reid captured the 2009 Canadian Marathon title. Qualifying as a member of the World Cup team competing in Berlin at the World Championships, Reid set a new personal best finishing 25th overall and was the top Canadian finisher in the marathon.

Alister McQueen, Calgary, AB

· Outstanding Para-Athlete of the Year  – Ambulatory Award

At the IWAS World Junior Championships Alister took centre stage in the T44 amputee classification winning three gold medals, setting one Canadian Record (100m), and three World Junior Records (100m, 200m, 400m). Alister is the 2009 Canadian Champion in all three events, as well he holds all three Canadian Records.

Derek Drouin, Corunna, ON

· Eric E. Coy Trophy – Outstanding Junior Athlete of the Year

Derek captured gold at the Pan American Junior Championships in the high jump while setting a new Canadian Junior and Meet Record. He is the 2009 Canadian Junior High Jump Champion and Canadian Senior Championships silver medalist. Competing for Indiana University, Drouin captured the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships silver medal, was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year and bettered the 35 year standing Indiana State High Jump Record.

Aaron Brown, Toronto, ON

· Myrtle Cook Trophy – Outstanding Youth Athlete of the Year

At the 2009 IAAF World Youth Championships Brown ran four strong races in the 100 metres; first he bettered the Canadian Youth Record in the quarter-final and then went on to capture the silver medal.  Brown’s strong season continued winning gold at the Legion Canadian Youth Championships.

Anthony McCleary, Pickering, ON

· Coach of the Year

This year’s recipient of the Outstanding Coach of the Year is Anthony McCleary. Anthony is the head coach at Elite Edge Club as well as the personal coach to Olympic Bronze Medalist and World Championships Silver Medalist Priscilla Lopes-Schliep.  McCleary also coaches Canadian female 100m champion Toyin Olupona.

Jennifer Campbell, Winnipeg, MB

· Official of the Year

The National Officials Committee recognized Jennifer Campbell as the 2009 recipient of the Official of the Year Award. Athletics Canada is extremely proud to have worked with the National Officials Committee in recognizing this very deserving recipient for all of her contributions to officiating and the sport.

For more information regarding Athletics Canada’s Annual Awards please visit: www.athletics.ca/page.asp?id=54.

-AC-

Emily Hooper
Coordinator, Public Relations and Corporate Services
Athletics Canada
(613) 260-5580 Ext. 3332
ehooper@athletics.ca

Athletics Canada names 2009 Award Finalists

Monday, October 26, 2009

OTTAWA – Athletics Canada announced today the three finalists for each awards category as a lead in to the 2009 Athletics Canada Awards Gala. The finalists and winners are chosen by Athletics Canada’s Awards Committee, the winners will be honoured at the Gala to be held Saturday November 14th in Vancouver, BC.

2009 Award Finalists

Jack W. Davies Trophy Overall Athlete of the Year
Name	Hometown	Accomplishment
Perdita Felicien	Pickering, ON	World Championship Finalist (100mH)
Priscilla Lopes-Schliep	Whitby, ON	World Championship Silver Medalist (100mH)
Gary Reed	Victoria, BC	World Athletics Final Silver Medalist (800m)
Cal D. Bricker Memorial Trophy
Single Outstanding Performance of the Year
Julie Labonté	Ste-Justine, QC	Canadian Junior Record, record had stood since 1964, at Canadian Junior Championships (Shot Put)
Priscilla Lopes-Schliep	Whitby, ON	World Championship Silver Medalist (100mH)
Gary Reed	Victoria, BC	World Athletics Final Silver Medalist (800m)
Phil A. Edwards Trophy
Track Athlete of the Year
Perdita Felicien	Pickering, ON	Canadian Champion & World Championship Finalist (100mH)
Priscilla Lopes-Schliep	Whitby, ON	World Championship Silver Medalist (100mH)
Gary Reed	Victoria, BC	Canadian Champion & World Athletics Final Silver Medalist (800m)
F.N.A. Rowell Trophy
Field Athlete of the Year
Sultana Frizell	Kamloops, BC	World Championship Finalist (Hammer Throw)
Julie Labonté	Ste Justine, Qc	Canadian Junior Champion & Canadian Junior Record (Shot Put)
Jim Steacy	Lethbridge, AB	Summer Universiade, FISU Silver Medalist (Hammer Throw)
Fred Begley Memorial Trophy
Off-Track Athlete of the Year
Simon Bairu	Regina, SK	Canadian Cross Country Champion
Reid Coolsaet	Hamilton, ON	Canadian Champion & Top Canadian finisher at World Championships (Marathon)
Evan Dunfee	Richmond, BC	Canadian Junior Champion & CAN-USA Dual Meet Gold Medalist (10km Race Walk)
Combined Events Award
Athlete of the Year in Combined Events
Jamie Adjetey-Nelson	Windsor, ON	Summer Universiade, FISU 6th (Decathlon)
Brianne Theisen	Humboldt, SK	Canadian Champion & 15th at the World Championships (Heptathlon)
Eric E. Coy Trophy
Junior Athlete of the Year
Derek Drouin	Corunna, ON	Pan American Junior Championships Gold Medalist & Canadian Junior Record (High Jump)
Julie Labonté	Ste Justine, QC	Canadian Junior Champion & Canadian Junior Record (Shot Put)
Alister McQueen	Calgary, AB	3-time IWAS World Juniors Gold Medalist & World Junior Records (T44 100m-400m)
Myrtle Cook Trophy
Youth Athlete of the Year
Aaron Brown	Toronto, ON	World Youth Championships Silver Medalist & Canadian Youth Record (100m)
Isaiah Christophe	Brampton, ON	4-time IWAS World Juniors Gold Medalist (T54 100m-800m)
Djange Lovett	Langley, BC	World Youth Championships Bronze Medalist & Canadian Youth Record (High Jump)
Gregory MacNeill	London, ON	World Youth Championships Bronze Medalist (110mH)
Dr. Fred Tees Memorial Trophy
Best University Athlete of the Year
Jamie Adjetey-Nelson	Windsor, ON	CIS Championships Gold Medalist (Pentathlon) & 6th at FISU
Sam Effah	Calgary, AB	CIS Championships Gold Medalist & FISU Finalist (200m)
James Steacy	Lethbridge, AB	CIS Championships Gold Medalist & FISU Silver Medalist (Hammer Throw)
Outstanding Para-Athlete of the Year – Wheelchair Events
Josh Cassidy	Oakville, ON	Daniela Jutzeler Memorial Bronze Medalist (T54 5000m)
Keira Frie	Saskatoon, SK	IWAS World Junior Championships Multi Medalist (T54 100m-1500m)
Diane Roy	Hatley, QC	Daniela Jutzeler Memorial Gold Medalist (T54 400m)
Outstanding Para-Athlete of the Year – Ambulatory Events
Noella Klawitter	Carleton Place, ON	Canadian Champion & Canadian Record (T12 400m)
Alister McQueen	Calgary, AB	3-time IWAS World Juniors Gold Medalist & World Junior Records (T44 100m-400m)
Coach of the Year
Anthony McCleary	Pickering, ON	Coach at Elite Edge Club, coach of Priscilla Lopes-Schliep (100mH) and Toyin Olupona (100m)
Dave Scott-Thomas	Guelph, ON	Coach at the University of Guelph and Speed River Track and Field Club producing 7 individual Canadian Champions in 2009.
Brenda Van Tighem	Calgary, AB	The Lead Power and Speed coach at the University of Calgary; personal coach to Sam Effah (100 & 200m) and Amonn Nelson (200m&400m)

Tickets for the Awards Gala, which include a cocktail reception beginning at 6:00pm followed with dinner at 7:00pm are now on sale now for $50.00. To purchase your ticket please contact Chris Woods at (613) 260-5580 Ext. 3315 or cwoods@athletics.ca.

For more information on Athletics Canada’s Awards please visit: www.athletics.ca/page.asp?id=54.

- AC -

By Howard Tsumura, The Vancouver Province
SURREY — By the very nature of its November date, it’s normally wet and mucky conditions and its virtual stampede of humanity, the Subway B.C. High School Cross Country championships always manage to provide storylines galore.
The 2009 edition, run Saturday morning at Surrey’s Crescent Park, was just such a race.
From the absolute dominance shown by Vancouver’s St. George’s Saints in the boys team event, to the duel between top boys runners Justin Kent and Connor Clerke, to the potential emergence of B.C.’s next great middle distance star in the girls race.
Like we said, Saturday’s race had it all.

see ace photographer Jon Murray’s picture gallery by clicking here.

BOYS TEAM
The Saints not only arrived quicker to the finish line than the rest of their competition, they arrived beyond their years on Saturday.
St. George’s placed four runners in the top 15, finishing a full 64 points ahead of second-place Oak Bay of Victoria.
Grade 11 Will Cliff finished the 6.5-kilometre race in 22:20.6 to take third overall. Grade 10 Christian Gravel was seventh (22.57.4), Grade 11 Dennis Brown 13th (23.08.5) and senior Azar Chatur 14th (23.13.3). Grade 11 Max Douglas was 41st.
“Will and Christian both have the ability to deliver on a big day and it’s great to know that they will both be back next year,” said Saints’ head coach Chris Johnson. “The guys delivered today. The understood the importance of what we were trying to do and it means a lot to me that they all pushed through the pain and came through.”
Kwantlen Park of Surrey finished third.

BOYS INDIVIDUAL
It was the second head-to-head duel in a week for Surrey-Kwantlen Park’s Justin Kent and Kelowna’s Connor Clerke.
Last Saturday at the B.C. junior men’s cross country championships on Saturday at Stanley Park, Kent (22:24.60) topped Clerke (22.27.05) as the pair finished second and third respectively over seven kilometres as juvenile-age runners competing against older competition.
On Saturday, Clerke (21.41.8) found the kick he needed over the latter stages of the race to edge Kent (22.01.1) for the high school title.
“He ended up taking a bit of a lead,” said Clerke of Kent, the Fraser Valley champ. “And then with a lap to go I slowly started to reel him in. Coming into the last kilometre we were neck and neck but with about 400 metres to go to the finish line, I just took off. I didn’t look back. I just ran as hard as I could to the finish.”
Clerke admitted that his pre-race No. 2 ranking versus Kent’s No. 1 was to his advantage.
“It inspired me,” Clerke continued. “It made me look like the underdog. I was able to come in with no expectations and that worked perfectly for me. Right now, this feels pretty unbelievable. I couldn;t be happier winning this race in my last year of high school.”
Oak Bay ninth grade Lehm McGuire was 12th (23.05.8).
GIRLS TEAM
The Oak Bay girls repeated as B.C. champs with Vancouver’s West Point Grey Academy finishing second for the second straight year.
Once again, quality throughout its ranks lifted the Bays to the team title.
Oak Bay’s highest finisher was Grade 11 Courtney Roskelly who finished 16th. Ninth grader Elise Butler was 29th, 10th grader Bree Neale 42nd, Grade 11 Erin Haight 50th and Grade 10 Heather Van Tassel 51st.
Van Tassel wound up being the story of the day for the Bays.
When Grade 10 Maddie Secco, the team’s third runner, was forced to stay in Victoria with a bout of the flu, Van Tassel helped her team score some important points.
“She collapsed, then crawled over the finish line,” said Butler.

GIRLS INDIVIDUAL
Abbotsford-W.J. Mouat Grade 9 phenom Alex Siemens gave notice that she may be treading on some pretty hallowed ground over the next four years.
Siemens was four second faster than second-place Tanya Humeniuk of Vancouver’s Killarney Secondary, winning the 4.4-kilometre race in 17.07.1.
Oak Bay’s Justine Johnson placed second in the race in 2004 and 2005 in her eighth and ninth grade years, then won it three straight years.
Is there a similar story line brewing with Siemens?
Girls Team

1.    Oak Bay 86
2.    West Point Grey Academy 101
3.    Semiahmoo 159

Boys Team

1.    St. George’s 36
2.    Oak Bay 100
3.    Kwantlen Park 126

Individual Girls
1    Siemens    Alex    WJ Mouat    17:07.1
2    Humeniuk    Tanya    Killarney    17:11.3
3    Ridenour    Christine    Cowichan    17:13.4
4    Hooper    Allison    Claremont    17:26.7
5    Benson    Fiona    Electronic ED    17:37.8
6    Butterworth    Lindsey    Handsworth    17:43.8
7    Williams    Allison    Semiahmoo    17:44.6
8    DeSchiffart    Erica    Nanaimo Christian    17:49.1
9    Balaze    Emma    Kelly Road    17:51.2
10    Regan    Leah    Maple Ridge    18:00.2
11    Butterworth    Alycia    Ballenas    18:04.4
12    Schoch    Sasha    Kelowna Secondary    18:04.4
13    Regan    Jacqueline    Little Flower Academy    18:05.5
14    DeSchiffart    Marita    Nanaimo Christian    18:07.7
15    Wille    Hilary    Claremont    18:10.5
16    Roskelley    Courtney    Oak Bay    18:12.6
17    Carruthers    Tessni    Vernon Secondary    18:16.1
18    Sim    Emilyn    Shuswap Middle    18:16.4
19    Mackenzie    Kansas    Prince of Wales    18:20.7
20    McInnis    Shauna    Stelly’s    18:22.3
21    McCulloch    Kaileen    Smithers    18:25.4
22    Wiebe    Devon    Lord Byng    18:26.1
23    Cho    Rachel    Semiahmoo    18:26.6
24    Stone    Kala    South Kamloops    18:29.5
25    Potter    Erin    West Point Grey Academy-T    18:29.7

Individual Boys
1    Clerke    Connor    Kelowna Secondary    21:41.8
2    Kent    Justin    Kwantlen Park    22:01.1
3    Cliff    William    St. Georges-T    22:20.6
4    Riva    Thomas    Kwalikum    22:22.6
5    Lawrence    Mo    Howe Sound    22:30.9
6    Palmer    David    Lakes District    22:32.6
7    Gravel    Christian    St. Georges-T    22:57.4
8    Powell    Brook    Claremont    22:59.2
9    Hall    Evan    Westsyde Secondary    23:01.0
10    Therrien    Cody    St Andrews Regional    23:01.7
11    Minaker    Gord    Mt Boucherie    23:01.7
12    McGuire    Lehm    Oak Bay    23:05.8
13    Brown    Dennis    St. Georges-T    23:08.5
14    Chatur    Azar    St. Georges-T    23:13.3
15    Miles    Austin    West Van    23:15.5
16    Humeniuk    Anton    Killarney    23:18.1
17    DeSchiffart    Joel    Nanaimo Christian    23:18.8
18    Van Woerden    Jeremy    Abbotsford Christian    23:20.1
19    MacLean    Nicholas    Correlieu    23:24.0
20    Roots    Logan    Shawnigan Lake    23:27.2
21    McDougall    Robby    DP Todd    23:28.5
22    Bruchet    Jake    Elgin Park    23:29.3
23    Slade    Alex    Elgin Park    23:29.5
24    Zosiak    Kyle    Oak Bay    23:29.7
25    Bancroft    Nathan    Nechako Valley    23:31.8