(Posted 9:30 a.m., Feb. 14)
East end athletes have strong showing at UofO invitational track meet
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Tolu Makinge sprints to victory in the U18 60-metre dash at the University of Orrawa Winternational Invitational track meet at the Louis Riel dome on Saturday. Fred Sherwin/Photo

The University of Ottawa held their 5th Annual Winternational Invitational track meet at the Louis Riel Dome on Saturday and several local athletes made the most of the home track advantage.

Tolu Makinde, 16, from Fallingrbook, finished first in both the U18 60-meter dash and the 300-metre dash and second in th 60-metre hurdles.

The Grade 11, Colonel By Secondary School student is continuing to progress nicely following a hugely successful outdoor season last year in which he placed third in the 200 metres and fourth in the 100 metres at the Canadian Youth Athletic Championships in Sherbrooke. Makinde's results were impressive mainly because he was competing in the 17 and under division as a 16-year-old.

This year he has his sights set on gold as the Canadian Youth Athletic Championships come to the Terry Fox Athletic Facility for the first time in more than 25 years. What will make the event even more special is a brand new state-of-the-art track that is being installed in time for the event which will be held from Aug. 5-11.

Before he competes in the provincial and national youth championships, however, he must first contend with the high school track season which has its own set of challenges. For one, Makinde will be competing as a first year senior against Grade 12 athletes who are at least a year old than him.

It's very rare for a Grade 11 athlete to make it on to the podium competing as a senior. Tolu's older brother Segun is arguably the best sprinter ever to come out of the east end, but even he had trouble cracking the top three at the provincial high school championships competing as a first year senior. After failing to make the 100-metre final, he placed second in the 200 and 3rd in the 110-metre hurdles.

On Saturday, Segun, who is a first year student at the University of Ottawa, placed third in both the Open Men's 300-metres and the 60-metre hurdles and fifth in the 60-metre dash.

Former Colonel By teammate and fellow UofO and Ottawa Lions member Cameron Smithers won the Open Men's 600 metres in a time of 1:22.35.

Olivier Gauthier-Kwan also competed in the Open Men's division. The Gisele-Lalonde grad placed second in the long jump and fourth in the triple jump, which was won by 17-year-old David Nsabua who elected to test his hop, skip and jumping abilities against the big boys. The Grade 12, Louis Riel student then blew the competition away in the U18 long jump with a leap of 6.94, which was nearly a metre longer than the second place competitor.

Other first place performances were turned in by Isaiah Moses who won the U18 600-metres in a time of 1:25.30, and Mohamed Souleiman who finished ahead of the pack in the U18 1000-metres. Moses is a Grade 11 student at Gloucester High School and Souleiman is in Grade 11 at Louis Riel.

One of the pleasant surprises at the Winternational meet was Kevin Nault. The Grade 10, Cairine Wilson Secondary School student finished second in the U18 300-metres and fourth in the U18 60-metre hurdles.

Last year, at the OFSAA provincial championships in Toronto, he placed fourth in the midget boys 300-metre hurdles and 11th in the 100-metre hurdles.

Perhaps even more impressive than Nault's results in the U18 division, was the second place performance by Lindsay Kary in the same age group. Competing against girls two years her senior, the St. Matthew High School Grade 9 student ran a 3:07.07.

Other east end athletes who competed on Saturday include, Kathrtyn Tuck who placed fifth in the Open Women's 600-metres running for the University of Ottawa, and Vanessa de Hoog who placed 13th in the Open Women's 1500 metres as a member of the Queen's University Track team.

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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