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Past champions repeat at 2017 OFSAA Cross-Country Championships

Aurora High School's Cameron Ormond is one year, and a win, away from potentially making OFSAA history after back-to-back-to-back cross-country titles

OFSAA Cross-Country
November 4, 2017
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OFSAA, the Ontario high school sports federation, hosted its cross-country championships on Saturday.

In Petawawa, Ont., at Petawawa Golf Club, more than 1,500 runners raced across midget, junior, senior and para categories in what is one of North America’s largest championship cross-country events. Cool conditions, including snow, made it true cross-country weather for November.

Notable highlights include Cameron Ormond winning her third consecutive OFSAA Cross-Country Championships gold medal in arguably the toughest year as a first-year senior. The Grade 11 student won the midget and junior races in 2015 and 2016 and went up against Grade 12s in 2017. An OFSAA cross-country win in 2018 would make her the first female to win four consecutive provincial cross-country championships. (Ian Clark and Kevin Sullivan are the only high schoolers to have done so.)

In the junior boys race, Joe Fast won his second straight OFSAA cross-country title. He won the midget boys race at Trinity College School in 2016. Thomas Witkowicz won the senior boys race, his third OFSAA cross-country title of his high school running career, putting among the more decorated runners in recent OFSAA history.

Overall, there were three repeat champions in 2017 in the midget, junior and senior ranks with EJ Boston, Roman Mironov and Emma Gosselin being first-time winners. In the para races, Sarah Giles won her second consecutive OFSAA title.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbFwa51jDDM/

Divisions are midget (Grade 9), junior (Grade 10) and senior (Grade 11 and up) with four runners scoring for each team. Lowest point score among all four runners is the cross-country team champion. Midgets run 4K, juniors 5K and seniors 6K.

2017 OFSAA XC winners

Midget: Roman Mironov (13:07.4), Emma Gosselin (14:47.4)
Team: Uxbridge (boys), Glebe (girls)
Junior: Joe Fast (18:22.9), EJ Boston (21:25)
Team: Neil McNeil (boys), Kingston CVI (girls)
Senior: Thomas Witkowicz (19:48.4), Cameron Ormond (22:32.2)
Team: Vincent Massey (boys), Sarnia Northern (girls)

Full results can be found here.

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