Kurt Benninger got started in running in high school with the Saugeen Track and Field Club. As a member of STFC he was a Canadian Jr 1500m champion, a 3 time World Jr XC Championships qualifier, a 5 time Canadian National Team qualifier and in 2003 was the Pan Am Jr silver medalist in the 1500m in Barbados.
At the University of Notre Dame Kurt was a 6 time All American, and led the Fighting Irish to a 3rd place team finish at the 2005 NCAA XC
Championships—placing 8th individually. He holds Notre Dame school records in the 3000m (indoor), Distance Medley Relay (indroor), and in the 5000m (outdoor). He was a multiple Big East Champion and holds the Big East conference meet record in the mile.
Personal Best: 1500m-3:38.03, Mile-3:56.99, 3000m-7:52.28, 5000m-13:30
Priscilla Lopes-Schliep won the Milrose Games last Friday with her 8.01 clocking in the 60 m hurdles. For less than 24 hours she led the world in that event. Lolo Jones of the USdid 7.90 in Europe the next day.
Top Ten Canadian Performers 2010
Winter Season- Men As of January 30
1149 points 3:58.52 MileKurt Benninger’85
1144 points 2:13.52 Mara Eric Gillis’80
1142 points 1:47.92 800m Kyle Smith’85
1137 points 1:02.47 ½ Mara Simon Baru’83
1132 Points 3:59.80 Cameron Levins
1125 points 6.66 60m sam effah’88
1123 points 4:00.49 Mile Matt Lincoln ‘82
1112 points 7.84 60mh jared macleod’80
1110 points 7.8560mh Karl Jennings’79
1108 points 2.25 HJ mike mason’86
1108 points 4:01.64 mile tim konoval ‘84
Top Ten Canadian Performers 2010
winter Season- Women As of January 30
1167 points 8.01 60mh priscilla lopes schliep’82
1152 points 4:29.42 mile Nicole Edwards’86
1148 points 8.10 60mh Perdita Felicien’80
1117 points 4:34.28 mile Hilary stellingwerf’81
1116 points 53.34 400m carlene muir’87
1111 points 9:04.85 3000 Sheila Reid’89
1107 points 4:35.72 mile amber mcgowan’83
1107 points 7.38 60m toyin olupona’83
1103 points 8.32 60mH Phyllicia George’87
1102 points 4:36.44 mile megan metcalfe’82
This information is not affiliated or endorsed by Athletics Canada
The high jumper stands at the top of the lane, motionless for 32 seconds.
He stares toward his nemesis, a bar balanced 2.17 meters above the track – a barrier he is determined to clear. His light blue eyes bore into it as he psyches himself up to run toward his lone obstacle here in Gladstein Fieldhouse, home of the IU track and field team. To him, the rest of the arena has fallen away. All that’s left is him and the bar.
“OK, this isn’t anything,” the young man silently tells himself. “I’m used to it. I’ve seen this height before. I can jump this.”
For the eternity of those 32 seconds, he focuses on one goal. To overcome. To ascend. To defy gravity.
The lane leading to the bar, roughly 15 yards away, is a runway. And Derek Drouin is ready to fly.
—
Drouin, a 19-year-old sophomore, resembles a heron. He is tall – 6-foot-4 – and long and skinny. His build is typical for a high jumper.
IU assistant coach Jeff Huntoon describes Drouin as a “prototypical” high jumper. But Drouin’s body is not his only weapon. He also possesses the mental edge that defines the elite group of athletes who glide above the bar. He and Ashley Rhoades, a high jumper for the IU women’s team, have reached new heights this year based on their almost supernatural ability to envelop themselves in concentration.
“Both of them have the ability to focus in on what they’re doing and not get lost in a lot of the other minutiae that’s going on around them and not get caught up in too many other thought processes,” Huntoon says. “They’re going to focus on the one or two little elements that allowed them to miss the last bar and just go out there and give another good attempt.”
Drouin, a native of Canada, first tried jumping in grade school, but didn’t really start competitively until he reached his junior year of high school in 2007. That same year, he went to the World Youth Championships in the Czech Republic. The pressure of the international spotlight did not stop him from performing, as he earned a 10th place finish.
“Really, getting thrown into the deep end, I just learned to swim,” he says.
—
On this Saturday, as the seconds tick away, Drouin won’t be hurried. He is waiting for a feeling of readiness. He can’t describe it, but he’ll know it when it comes.
Around him, the arena bursts with distractions. Fans are clapping for a pole vaulter attempting a personal record. A triple jumper sprints toward a sandy pit, his legs pounding the clay. Drouin hears none of it. Although his team is technically competing against their rival squad from Purdue University, Drouin recognizes that the bar is his true opponent. At its current height, it stands more than half a foot above his head. No one else from his team or Purdue’s has been able to clear it today.
“I’ve been doing it for a while, and I’ve actually taught myself just to concentrate so much on the bar that I can’t really hear anything else,” Drouin says. “It’s just something you have to teach yourself how to do.”
On his first leap of the day, a routine jump of 2.14 meters, he cut his wrist on the mat that breaks the jumpers’ falls. Even though the wound is still bleeding, he must force the lingering pain out of his mind. Any distraction could spell disaster.
The bar is unforgiving. The slightest touch, and it falls. Drouin’s current jump is only three centimeters higher than the last. But in this sport, even the slightest increase in height exponentially increases difficulty – and the jumper’s doubts. Sooner or later, as the bar is raised higher and higher, even the most gifted flyers crash.
“High jump and pole vault are the only two events that end in failure,” says Jared Nuxoll, another IU high jumper. “Your last three attempts are always going to be misses. It’s important to stay positive.”
The bar radiates uncertainty, especially when jumpers attempt personal records. Once it is set, Nuxoll says, a daunting thought creeps into the jumper’s mind: “I’ve never jumped higher than that.”
Form fails. Even the best mentally crumble. And as confidence fades, so does the chance of succeeding.
When Drouin’s about to head down the runway, he has to erase his doubts and overcome his fear. Sometimes he will take his first few steps and already know he’s off to a bad start. Even then, there’s no turning back.
This afternoon, as Drouin gathers himself at the top of the lane, something slowly shifts inside him. His eyes become glassy. The tension in his body evaporates. He enters his own world.
With his right leg positioned in front of his left, he rears back just a little, then propels himself forward and starts to run.
—
Jumping is an emotionally charged event, and every jumper handles it differently.
In the 2009 NCAA Mideast Regional, Drouin was pitted against an indoor national champion in the long jump and All-American in the high jump, Tone Belt of the University of Louisville. Belt was hungry for another victory, and his voracity knew no bounds. Drouin was his main competition, and he knew it. With every jump he completed, Belt unleashed a primal roar and stared at Drouin to make sure the freshman was watching.
Drouin was not intimidated. As the day wore on and the stakes climbed, he stuck to his routine. Every time he finished a jump, he avoided celebration. His unshakeable cool won him respect from his peers and a first-place finish.
This year, Drouin has been flying higher than ever. In the inaugural event of the season, the Indiana Open, he cleared 2.24 meters, earning automatic qualification to the NCAA Indoor Championships in March. But he didn’t stop there. The next height he attempted was 2.28 meters – a mark that would have won him the best clearance of the indoor season. Not just collegiately. Not just nationally. But in the world.
His first and second attempts were close – so close that on the second try, he thought he’d made it. As he landed, the bar remained in place for a split second, then fell. When it collapsed, so did he.
“I was already on the mat, and I thought I’d made it,” he says. “I heard everyone sigh, and then I realized that I’d missed it. I’ve seen video, and I’m still not really sure of what hit the bar.”
That day, Drouin had earned the best clearance in the nation in the high jump. His jump bested that of any amateur or professional, even Olympic hopefuls. And still, the bar had won. This is the elemental struggle all high jumpers face. Because the bar always triumphs in the end, it inspires fear of failure and defeat. And that fear costs jumpers dearly.
But Ashley Rhoades, also one of the country’s best collegiate high jumpers, says the bar also embodies something other than doubt. To her, it symbolizes possibility.
“It just motivates me that there’s always another mark,” she says. “There’s always another goal that I can reach. If it’s a centimeter, if it’s a couple inches, there’s always a little bit better that you can do. There’s always another standard that you can hit.”
To her, the possibilities are more powerful. Achieving a goal, breaking a record. Soaring above it all.
—
It took Drouin 32 seconds to collect himself. Now, accelerating down the runway, it only takes him four seconds to approach his target.
As he gets closer, he repeats the same thought over and over.
“I can still do it . . . I can still do it . . . I . . . ”
At the last moment, he curls toward the right, so that the left side of his body is parallel to the bar. He throws his arms back, bends his knees and goes airborne. He sails head first, his back facing downward. As his butt clears the bar, he kicks his legs toward the sky. Even before he lands, he knows he’s made it.
What no one else has accomplished today, he makes look easy. He would like to jump up and down, but all the energy inside him is drained.
He stands up, his face set in stone. Without a word, he walks away.
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.
By YVONNE ZACHARIAS, Vancouver SunJanuary 24, 2010
Valerie Jerome, sister of Olympian Harry Jerome, completed a leg of the torch relay with the team from 1956 (Melbourne) in Trail, BC on Sunday afternoon, January 24, 2010.
TRAIL — For many years, Valerie Jerome has worked tirelessly to keep the memory of her brother Harry alive.
She worked to have a statue of the famous runner, the one who broke seven world records, erected in Stanley Park.
She has worked to ensure that the prestigious track and field meet known as the Harry Jerome Classic goes off every year without a hitch at Swangard Stadium in Burnaby.
Harry died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 42.
It was largely for him that Valerie, the 65-year-old former elementary school teacher from Vancouver, ran in the torch relay Sunday. Harry would have wanted it. So did she.
And as she ran the distance in this interior, working-class town, she was carrying the torch for her brother, keeping his spirit alive.
His death in 1982 dealt her a tremendous blow. “It was very, very, very hard,” she recalls. In the family pecking order, she was four years younger. “We came from a broken home, I guess you might call it. My family was not too together, so Harry and I were extraordinarily close.”
She doesn’t want to say more about this. Many families have problems. Hers certainly did.
But the run has brought back so many memories of Harry, who competed with her in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
One thing Valerie remembers — and this vividly — is going to the U.S. dining room at those Olympics so she could hang out with all the handsome black men. Harry wasn’t that wild about going there but she was keen.
“The Canadian team was small so we ate in either the American dining room or the British dining room,” she explained. “Of course, Harry didn’t always want to meet in the American dining room. Those were going to be his biggest competitors and he would try to be cool.”
But for her, “sitting and having lunch and dinner with Cassius Clay across the table and all these beautiful young black men who were just something beyond my experience in very white Vancouver in the 1950s and 1960s — those are some of the things I like to have a good chuckle about.”
The Olympic bug, she says, seems to run in the family. Her grandfather, John Howard, was a railway porter who represented Canada in the 1912 Summer Olympics.
Harry competed in the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Summer Olympics for Canada, winning the 100-metre bronze in 1964. He also won gold at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth games and the 1967 Pan Am Games.
He was injured in the semi-final in the 1960 Olympics and again in the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games. At the latter, Harry tore his hamstring so badly doctors initially believed he would never walk again. “Canadians went berserk and called him a quitter. It was quite a trauma for him. It was bad enough to be out of the running but the reception he got at home wasn’t great.” Such was the temper of the times. Valerie is still sad about that terrible injustice.
But she doesn’t let the ghosts from the past catch up with her. She is too busy. Now in retirement, she runs several times a week, works out in the gym with weights and does yoga. She is very interested in exercise and what it can do for you both mentally and physically.
She taught school for 35 years in Vancouver. She loved it. But she loves retirement even better.
With her son living in Toronto and completing a PhD in history, she says, “I’m on my own now and enjoying life to the fullest.”
As she talks, it is as though she is reliving her life with Harry, experiencing the highs and lows of the famous, gifted international athlete who was her brother.
She recalled going into the Olympic trials in Saskatoon in 1960, where Harry set a world record for 100 metres. He was only 19. “He had huge, huge pressure on him,” she says.
She knows that Harry would have loved the Olympic torch relay and 2010 Olympics. “He was a very, very positive person, a great promoter of activities. He would have probably organized the thing himself.”
She said she was finding the whole thing a powerful experience as she was getting set to run the torch as part of a group called Melbourne 1956. Seventeen of the torchbearers in the group competed in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne and two others, including Jerome, were running for family members who competed and have since died.
If Harry were here, she said, “He would probably see this as a great chance to get a whole lot of young people involved.”
She worked to get the bronze statue erected on the Stanley Park seawall, holding meetings in her home twice a month for about four months.
It gave her great joy that children in her class were able to watch the first part of the bronze pouring. Then the next year, the children actually got to unveil the statue.
Her work to keep his memory alive continues. She has nominated him to have a park or a mountain or a lake named after him. “I just got approval from the federal government that that will be forthcoming.” The matter has now been transferred over to the provincial government.
She is a little worried though. In some of the paperwork, the bureaucrats have called him Henry rather than Harry. Surely they know he is Harry. She hopes so.
With her run in the torch relay, she compared her running style to Harry’s. Even when she was in her prime, she wasn’t nearly as powerful as he was. Nor did she have his incredible cadence. “Harry was just from another world. If you could imagine a 19-year-old setting a world record that lasted for eight years.”
She added, “I was more flighty emotionally as well as in running style. We were very different athletes.”
She knows that there are a lot of things wrong with the Olympic movement but she credits it with transforming hers and her brother’s life. “For those of us who were given a remarkable opportunity in life, it broadened our world to reach out for other values.”
She has done an awful lot of research into her own family as it relates to the Olympic movement. “It has allowed me to reach into the lives of so many other young people. I feel that for me, for my family, for my brother in particular, there is a profound sense of gratitude for what we gained and I am not talking about material wealth. I am talking about a sense of belonging in the world, a sense of the possibility of achievement, all those possibilities are what you get when you get involved in the Olympic movement.”
She added, “You run a bit for the past, you run a bit for yourself and you run a bit for the future.”
Olympic Torch Relay With Canada's Olympic Track and Field Team "48, '52,' 56, '60, '64 & '72
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.
OLYMPIANS TO CARRY 2010 OLYMPIC TORCH IN TRAIL THIS SUNDAY AFTER 53 YEARS.
15 Olympic Track and Field athletes will meet in Trail, BC on Sunday, January 24th where 14 of them will carry the 2010 Olympic Torch. These athletes ran for Canada at the Summer Olympic Games in 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1972.
Some of these Olympians will meet again after more than 50 years to honour the 2010 Winter Olympics as the Olympic Torch crosses all of Canada. Many of these individuals have made major contributions in widely diverse areas in their careers as astronauts, NASA aeronautical engineers, best selling authors, educators, winemakers, fisherman, farmer, physician, coach, geological engineers and physicians.
OLYMPIANS
1948 Olympian Ernie McCullough- Professor of Philosophy
1952 Olympian Doug Clement and 1956- Professor of Sports Medicine
1956 Olympian Murray Cockburn- Vice President, Torstar
1956 Olympian Doug Kyle – Geological Engineer, Gulf Oil
1956 Olympian Stan Levenson- Customs Broker
1956 Olympian Jackie MacDonald- Educator
1956 Olympian Diane Matheson Clement- Author 8 Best Selling Cookbooks and Restaurant Owner
1956 Olympian Ken Money- Astronaut and Physiologist
1956 Olympian Maureen DuWors (Rever) - Professor of Biology
1956 Olympian Laird Sloan -Aeronautical Engineer, NASA
1956 Olympian Terry Tobacco and 1960- Educator and Fisherman
1956 Olympian Alice Simicak (Whitty) -Educator
1956 Olympian Margaret Tosh (George) -Farmer and Coach
1960 Olympian Valerie Jerome -Educator
1964 Olympian Gerry Moro and 1972 -Educator and Winemaker
Further info Doug Clement dclement007@mac.com
Pictures at http://gallery.me.com/dclement007#100141&bgcolor=black&view=gri
2010 UW Indoor Preview – January 16, 2010Dempsey Indoor, Seattle, Washington
UBC graduate student, Nathan Vadeboncoeur opened the indoor season in Seattle Saturday
with double victories in the 200m and 400m sprints at Dempsey Indoor Stadium on the
University of Washington campus.His time of 48.06 leads the Canada
Ruky Abdulai, the Canadian Olympian long jumper showed her athletic ability by
tackling 3 events normally not on her schedule by posting top performances
in the 60m hurdles, 200m and high jump.
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.
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)
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.
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.
Connor Clerke is congratulated by David Ling PHOTO BY JON MURRAY
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.
ALEX SIEMENS number 215 winnner of women's title PHOTO BY JON MURRAY
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
