How to follow the 2017 U Sports Cross-Country Championships
The national university cross-country championships are set for Nov. 12
The University of Victoria hosts the U Sports Cross-Country Championships – nationals for Canadian university students – on Sunday.
As many as 328 university student-athletes are set to vie for the national title on the west coast after Quebec City hosted the event in 2016. (The Canadian collegiate championships are a separate event and concluded on Nov. 11.)
RELATED: Photos from U Sports XC in 2016.
The last time Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, this year’s site, hosted the Canadian university cross-country championships was in 2007. Lindsay Carson and Alex Genest won that year. In 2017, the race is comprised of 2K loops with the women racing 8K (four laps) for the first time at the national level in Canadian university cross-country history, up from 6K in recent years. Men race 10K, or five laps of Beacon Hill Park. (You can see a run-through of the course here.)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaSaDiuFsRe/
The Laval Rouge et Or are the defending men’s team champions while Guelph is riding a historic 12-year win streak in the women’s team competition. Both teams are ranked in the top-three, though neither in the number one spot, in the pre-championship poll as voted on by coaches.
Laval’s Yves Sikubwabo, the 2017 Quebec conference champion, and Queen’s Claire Sumner, who finished fifth at the 2017 Ontario championships, are the defending individual champions and will both be in the field on Sunday.
Schedule
1 p.m. PST (4 p.m. EST): Women’s 8K
2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST): Men’s 10K
Useful U Sports links
– Live stream ($10 or part of subscription)
– Live tracking
– Results
– Information
– Start list
– Past champions
Canadian Running‘s profile on U Sports runners
– Russell Pennock (Calgary)
– Regan Yee (Trinity Western)
– Branna MacDougall (Queen’s)
– Savanna Jordan (Dalhousie)
– Kristina Popadich (Western)
– Yves Sikubwabo (Laval)
– Angus Rawling (St. FX)
– Connor Black (Guelph)
– Aurélie Dubé-Lavoie (Laval)
Putdowns and prognostications (satirical projections)
– Part one
– Part two
– Part three
Canadian Running‘s coverage of 2017 U Sports-sanctioned cross-country meets
– Link