Brogan MacDougall, 16, takes down field of collegiates at Penn Relays

She’s more than a year away from starting university but Brogan MacDougall still defeated a field of collegiate and post-collegiate runners at the 2017 Penn Relays on Thursday night.

The 16-year-old Kingston, Ont. native bested the entire women’s 5,000m field, 65 athletes in total, in sections one and two at the oldest and largest track and field competition in the United States. The event is held annually at the University of Pennsylvania — specifically Franklin Field — in Philadelphia.

MacDougall won by two seconds in 16:06.75 over Charlotte’s Caroline Sang, who broke her school’s record at that distance. (Record-wise, Athletics Canada doesn’t list an under-18 benchmark for the 5,000m.) MacDougall’s older sister, Branna, holds the Canadian U20 record for the women’s 5,000m in 15:48.80. Together, the sisters are two of the most successful U20 (though Brogan is still U18 youth) athletes in Canadian athletics history with national and provincial records to their names.

Brogan MacDougall of @Physi_Kult wins the women's 5000 in 16:06.75 https://t.co/mLKNPi4tXl #PennRelays

— Penn Relays (@pennrelays) April 28, 2017

MacDougall, who is in Grade 11 at Marie-Rivier High School in Kingston, recently finished 30th at the 2017 IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in Kampala, Uganda. The standout high school student is new to the 12.5-lap race on the track. In 2016, MacDougall ran 16:30 on the roads at the Canadian 5K Championships finishing fifth overall in a field of Olympians and professional athletes, some twice her age. MacDougall was Canadian Running‘s high school athlete of the year for 2016.

16 yr old @brannamacd just smoked all of the collegians and won the #PennRelays title in 16:06!! https://t.co/NZiXy1jHOy pic.twitter.com/rdcyYPsR5d

— LetsRun.com (@letsrundotcom) April 28, 2017

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRQ9rbSAPmI/

Oh, and Thursday’s performance marked MacDougall’s first-ever 5,000m on the track. Though she’s not eligible to race at OFSAA due to a school transfer, MacDougall is eyeing the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games in Nassau, Bahamas and perhaps an earlier 5,000m in Portland, Ore. See her post-race interview here.

There were two other Canadians who finished in the top-10 including Laval’s Aurelie Dube-Lavoie and Claire Sumner. Sumner, like MacDougall, runs for Physi-Kult, a Kingston-based club founded by Steve Boyd. Outdoor track and field season is just beginning and will continue through the spring and summer including the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London.