CTFL Round 2 recap: The Bears remain on top in London
Usheoritse Itsekiri and Tameran Defreitas put in seasons best performances as The Bears and The Huskies make moves in the standings
Photo by:
David Rutledge
On Sunday, May 29, the Canadian Track and Field League (CTFL) made its second stop of the season at the Bob Vigars Classic in London, Ont. Over 60 athletes competed for their respective CTFL teams and it was The Bears who extended their lead at the top of the standings through two CTFL preliminary meets.
Top performers of the meet
Usheoritse Itsekiri (The Bears)
Itsekiri won the men’s 100m in a speedy 10.04 seconds (+3.0 m/s) over Canadian Olympian Bolade Ajomale, a season’s best performance from Itsekiri. Although his time was not wind-legal (over +2.0 m/s), Itsekiri ran a wind-legal time of 10.10 seconds in the prelims. Itsekiri represented his home country of Nigeria in the 100m at the Tokyo Olympics but lives and trains in Saskatchewan.
Tameran Defreitas (The Huskies)
Defreitas clocked a season’s best performance of 24.15 seconds to win the women’s 2oom, collecting the most amount of points of the meet for the Huskies, 1031 points. The 27-year-old sprinter from Barrie, Ont., was also sixth in the 100m in 11.79 seconds, just off her personal best of 11.66.
Highlight of the meet
The men’s 1,500m was the spectacle of the afternoon, as the lead switched back and forth over the final 200m between Alec Purnell (Huskies) and Rohan Nowbotsing (Spitfires). Nowbotsing made a move with 200m to go, while Purnell countered, resulting in the two men battling it out on the final straight away. Purnell came across the finish line to win in 3:45.40, while Nowbotsing was second in 3:46.18.
“The general feedback is that it was a lot of fun,” CTFL founder Quinn Lyness says. “People were excited to compete and find out more about the CTFL. It was cool to see it all come together.”
Standings
After the second meet of the season, The Bears remain at the top of the standings, holding a 2000-point lead on The Spitfires. The Spitfires extended their second-place spot, 8,600 points up on the Huskies, who managed to gain one spot on the Arctics, sitting in fourth.
The CTFL will make its final stop season at the Terry Fox Stadium in Ottawa on June 15, before hosting the final on July 20. You can check out the standings and all the statistics on the official CTFL website.
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