Lalonde, Tate win ACXC 2019

The 2019 Athletics Canada Cross-Country championships had a women’s race with a particularly strong field that included: Gen Lalonde who’s the 2018 cross-country champion and Canadian steeplechase record holder, world championships qualifier Maria Galea-Bernard, Natasha Wodak who’s the Canadian 10,000m record holder and Sarah Inglis (an honourary Canadian as she’s a British citizen living in B.C.) who’s the all-comers 5K record holder.

The lead group included those four women but Wodak began to fade at the halfway point, and the group of four women went to three. Galea-Bernard, Lalonde and Inglis battled it out for the remaining 4K. Lalonde would eventually pull away from Inglis and take the win. Galea-Bernard finished in third.

Here we go! Senior women’s Canadian XC 10km Championship race has begun! #ACXC2019 #ACXC pic.twitter.com/wMS45LBTXr

— Athletics Canada (@AthleticsCanada) November 30, 2019

Fourth place went to Wodak and fifth place to steeplechaser and World Championship qualifier Regan Yee.

Lalonde has had a great year. In 2019 she was a World Championship finallist on the track, she had one of the highest-ever World Cross-Country finishes by a Canadian last March and she broke her own Canadian steeple record.

Lalonde said post-race that she’s looking forward to representing Canada at the upcoming Pan Am Championships, and feels that it’s the perfect preparation for the upcoming Olympics.

In the men’s results, it was Mike Tate of Speed River who was pushing the pace. Tate was closely followed through the early stages of the race by Connor Black and Luc Bruchet. Bruchet took over just past halfway but was caught by Tate who edged him out to win his first senior national cross-country championship.

The final results was Tate in first, Bruchet in second and Black in third.

U18 results

Bonikowsky and Tiwana win ACXC U18 races

U20 results

O’Neill and Davies dominate ACXC U20 fields