Impressive indoor results from across the country

The 2020 indoor track and field season is officially underway for U Sports athletes. Over the weekend lots of runners competed in their first meets of 2020, and the results indicate promising seasons for many Canadian athletes.

Here’s a roundup of impressive results from track meets across the country.

RELATED: Melissa Bishop-Nriagu opens indoor season with a win

East

In eastern Canada the big meet of the weekend was the Sherbrooke Vert et Or Invitational. There, Sherbrooke’s own runners were impressive, particularly over the 3,000m distance.

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Jean Carrier Carpenter was the women’s winner in a very impressive 10:05.89. She won by over 10 seconds, with second place going to Chloe Fleurent-Gregoire of McGill in 10:16.99.

In the women’s 600m, Jade Bouchard-Nguyen of UdeM was second in 1:33.02 to former U Sports 600m champion Maite Bouchard, who won in 1:30.74.

In the men’s results, Yassine Aber of Sherbrooke won the 600m in 1:21.66, but it was U de Trios Rivières that would dominate the other distance events. Its runners won both the 1,000m and 3,000m with Laurent-Olivier Dumont crossing the 1K finish in 2:36.36 and Jérémy Courchesne taking the 3K title in 8:59.69.

Central

In Windsor at the Can Am Classic, Guelph was dominant across both sprint and middle-distance events.

In the women’s 60m final it was an all-Gryphon start line, with Shyvonne Roxborough running a meet record of 7.38, closely followed by World Relay medallist Zoe Sherar in 7.51.

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The men’s race was similar, with the Gryphons making up two of the three podium spots. Andre Azonwanna took the win in 6.76, with Immanuel Onyemah of Waterloo in second and fellow Gryphon Kudakwashe Murasiranwa in third.

Stateside, Gryphon Daniel Harper finished fourth in the 400m at the Wolverine Invitational in 48.32.

In distance events it was Sadie-Jane Hickson of Guelph who impressed in the women’s 1,000m, besting the field by 10 seconds to take the win in 2:48.31. On the men’s side, the standout was Gryphon Mark Patton, who won the 1,500m in 3:54.04.

West

Last weekend was the first ever Sanderson Classic in honour of former coach Lyle Sanderson at the University of Saskatchewan. 

The female athlete of the meet was Cassandra Grenke from the University of Alberta who leads the league with an 8.43s in the 60mH. In the long sprints, Grace Konrad of Trinity Western had a great early season mark in the 300m and is currently ranked third in the country, running 39.44 on the flat 200m U of S track. On the men’s side, Luc Deleau of Manitoba ran 34.75s to win the men’s 300m and to rank him third in U Sports.

Coming up

This weekend the big events to check out are the uOttawa Invitational which is a great meet held on a 400m indoor track, the Golden Bear Open held at the Butterdome in Edmonton, the Fred Foot Classic held at UofT and the Athletics NS Indoor Invitational in Halifax. Check back next Monday for a roundup of all of the action.