Stating the obvious, track fans in attendance at the SDSSAA Relay Meet on Wednesday had that “we’ve seen this all before” feeling. For the 35th time in the 35 times the meet has been hosted, the Lo-Ellen Park Knights reigned supreme.
But that was only the half of it.
Capturing gold in 14 of the 16 races that were contested and setting seven new records along the way, the purple and black juggernaut duplicated exactly those same two numbers from the event hosted one year ago at the Laurentian University track.
The presence of standouts such as Annabelle Richardson, Melina Doiron, Amanda Syncox, Ty Dubreuil, Milena Kulik, Narayan Shukla and Rya D’Amour, all of whom were part of at least two record-setting teams, clearly helps.
So too does the Knights ability to seemingly pull talent out of the woodwork, as is somewhat the case with grade 12 senior Jaya MacDonald. Though family track excellence already existed via younger sister Nadia (reining novice girls 300m hurdles city champion), the elder sibling is a bit of a late bloomer.
“My sister was training with Robert (Esmie – Air Blastoff) and I wanted to give it a try this year,” said Jaya, whose interest in track that first blossomed in early elementary years was derailed when both her grade seven and eight seasons were lost to Covid. “It really took off from there.”
“I did the indoor season with him and loved competing.”
That said, taking the baton for the opening leg of a 4 X 100m team that included the trio of Doiron, Kulik and Syncox must have been incredibly intimidating, no?
“It’s a privilege to run with this team to begin with – and besides, these are all my friends,” said MacDonald. I loved running with them.”
Not only did the talented foursome break a record that has stood since 2006, but they did so in style, lowering the standard by 1.55 seconds, from 50.70 down to 49.15.
The list of race winners is as follows (* indicates that a new meet record was established):
4 X 800m relay - Open Girls - Lo-Ellen Park - 10:18.73Barbara Ceccon - Megan Pineau - Gracie Dale - Laticia DaSilva
4 X 800m relay - Open Boys - Lo-Ellen Park - 8:30.02
Shiloh Sauve - Narayan Shukla - Carson Jewitt - Julian Luoma
4 X 100m relay - Novice Girls - Lo-Ellen Park - 50.66*
Annabelle Richardson - Ellie Sauve - Lia Gallo - Rya D'Amour
4 X 100m relay - Novice Boys - Lo-Ellen Park - 47.00
Levi Blouin - Gilles Guignard - Mikko Leinala - Lincoln Parent
4 X 100m relay - Junior Girls - Lo-Ellen Park - 52.47
Nadia MacDonald - Isabella Perry - Joanna Ajueze - Jacqueline Tissot
4 X 100m relay - Junior Boys - Lo-Ellen Park - 44.43*
Francis Mallory - Janssen Fransen - Ty Dubreuil - Narayan Shukla
(* the new record time was almost two FULL seconds faster than the old record!)
4 X 100m relay - Senior Girls - Lo-Ellen Park - 49.15*
Melina Doiron - Milena Kulik - Amanda Syncox - Jaya MacDonald
4 X 100m relay - Senior Boys - Lasalle Secondary - 44.95
Sylas Corbiere - Gabe Gauvreau - Christian Hodgins - Logan Manella
4 X 200m relay - Open Girls - Lo-Ellen Park - 1:43.10*
Melina Doiron - Milena Kulik - Amanda Syncox - Annabelle Richardson
4 X 200m relay - Open Boys - Lo-Ellen Park - 1:35.84
Mishal Olanrewaju - Janssen Fransen - Ty Dubreuil - Sam Piette
4 X 400m relay - Novice Girls - Lo-Ellen Park - 4:23.37*
Sadie Frantz - Mila Beljo - Rya D'Amour - Rowan Frood
4 X 400m relay - Novice Boys - Lo-Ellen Park - 4:00.33
Julian Luoma - Levin Blouin - Matteo Spadafora - Mikko Leinala
4 X 400m relay - Junior Girls - Lo-Ellen Park - 4:46.30
Brooke Herranen - Nadia MacDonald - Megan Pineau - Zayda Paris
4 X 400m relay - Junior Boys - Lo-Ellen Park - 3:39.40*
Ty Dubreuil - Narayan Shukla - Sam Piette - Carson Jewitt
4 X 400m relay - Senior Girls - Lo-Ellen Park - 4:19.35*
Gracie Dale - Milena Kulik - Amanda Syncox - Barbara Ceccon
4 X 400m relay - Senior Boys - Lasalle Secondary - 3:35.99
Christian Hodgins - Ethan Mackinnon - Will Mackey - Aiden Hurley
