Bisons win one medal in track nationals' final event
Men’s 4x400 team comes through as Manitoba finishes in 9th and 13th
JARED BOOK THE CONCORDIAN
PHOTO BY JOSH BROWN, CUP
MONTREAL (CUP) — Coming off a successful 16-medal performance at the Canada West championships — where the men’s team finished third and the women fourth — the Manitoba Bisons grabbed just one medal at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport track and field national championships last weekend inside McGill’s Tomlinson Fieldhouse in Montreal.
Thanks to numerous strong non-podium finishes, however, the Bison women did manage to nearly double their point total from the 2006 CIS nationals, scoring 27 points compared to 15 last year, while the men jumped up to 20 from 16. The women’s team finished ninth at the event, while the men’s team finished in 13th place.
Manitoba was on the verge of being shut out of the medals until the men’s 4x400-metre relay team of David Szczepaniak, Sheldon Kilcullen, Andrew Schellenberg and Quin Ferguson edged out the Sherbrooke Ver et Or for bronze by less than a quarter-second in a time of 3:17.52.
“Especially in the last event, to get our only medal of the meet, it’s amazing. And with three of my very good friends, it’s just awesome,” said Ferguson, who was trailing John Carle of the Vert et Or coming off the last turn.
At that point, Ferguson still believed he’d get the medal before he surged ahead down the final stretch. “I had enough left in the tank,” he said. “I just really wanted it.”
Ferguson came close to winning a medal earlier in the day in the men’s 600-metre, finishing fourth behind silver medal-winning Carle in this case. Kilcullen was also part of the final as the Manitoba pair ran one behind the other in third and fourth for much of the way.
“It was great,” Ferguson said immediately after the 600-metre final. “We’re about the same speed, so it’s great to have someone there like that — a friend and a great competitor.”
The 1:19.39 time for the three laps of the 200-metre indoor track marked a career best for the Bison rookie.
“At the start of the year, I never thought I’d be able to run that fast, honestly,” Ferguson added. “It’s a huge personal best by over a second. I just went out really hard and tried to stick with it.”
On the women’s side, Georgette Mink, who finished 12th out of 115 racers at the CIS cross-country championships last November, claimed fourth spot in the 3,000-metre —the longest race in university track — bettering her Canada West gold medal-winning time by almost three seconds with a 10:02.73.
Mink also ran her best time ever in the 1,500-metre, finishing in 10th place, which was three seconds off the bronze medal-winning time.
“The final lap — I’ve got to work on my kick more. I’m more of an endurance runner so next year, I’ll have a nice kick,” Mink promised. “Every year I’ve had a personal best in one event, and this was my last race so I said ‘I have to get a PB.’ So I reached my goal and it’s nice because my coach told me to go with the lead pack, don’t fall back and that’s what I did.”
Mink had to take a year off from racing two seasons ago due to running-induced pelvic stress fractures. She called her 2006-07 campaign a success.
“I’m ecstatic about how I ran,” the third-year medical rehabilitation student said. “I was good, I was aggressive and I did everything I thought I wanted to achieve this year.”
Mink also said that she fed off of the energetic atmosphere at the championships as athletes yelled from the small space between the wall and the sixth lane as well as on the infield, and fans cheered on from the stands.
“The crowd was so good,” she added. “It was amazing and it’s good to run up front like that to get some experience.”
Other top finishes for the generally young Manitoba women included: fifth in the 4x800-metre relay; fifth in the 600-metre for Jana-Rae Cassidy, to go with a sixth in the 300-metre; Vicky Robson in sixth for the pole vault; and a sixth in 7.72 seconds in the 60-metre for Caley Miskimmin, the Bisons soccer player who had been seeded second nationally in the event.
The men’s 4x200-metre relay team also made the final and finished in sixth en route to overall placing of 14th.
Sherbrooke took the overall men’s title, while the Calgary Dinos, led by Jessica Zelinka’s five golds and a silver, won the women’s competition.
— With files from Dan Plouffe, CUP sports bureau chief
