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Dal track team set records, take home medals in Montreal »

McCullouch, women’s 4×800-metre relay big winners

By Susan Sobey, Staff Contributor

Editor’s Note: Susan Sobey ran on the track team for five years, winning many accolades, including CIS all-Canadian honours, along the way. The Gazette is pleased to have her track expertise on our staff.

Records fell at the largest university track and field meet in the country last weekend. Rob McCulloch set a new pentathlon meet record and the women’s 4×800-metre relay team put up a time of 9:09.24, which was just under four seconds better than the previous best at the Annual McGill Team Challenge.

“I didn’t even realize it was the meet record until someone else told me,” McCulloch said.

The McGill Challenge is the largest indoor track and field meet in the country, hosting 23 university teams, 22 club teams, and almost 700 participating athletes, making it a significantly larger meet than the CIS Championships.

This meet is the only chance Dalhousie athletes have to race on a regulation 200m track during the regular season, and is an excellent opportunity to qualify for the CIS Championships while competing against some of the best in the country.

McCulloch’s 3,545 points total bettered the previous record of 3479 set in 2008. It was also a personal best effort.

The pentathlon is an event where athletes compete in five different events (60-metre hurdles, long jump, high jump, shot put, and a 1000-metre race) over a day of competition. On the way to winning the event, McCulloch placed first overall in long jump (6.65m), high jump (1.99m), and the 1000m (2:47.28), second in shot put (11.67m), and fifth in the 60m hurdles (9.50).

“I don’t like knowing my point total until the very end and my only goal was improving my previous best score. It was a really long day, and though not every event went exactly as I expected or hoped, the day overall was great.”

This performance currently has McCulloch ranked 1st in the CIS.

The women’s 4x800m team put together a group of new faces, with only veteran Caroline Schlosser returning from last year’s squad. Joining her were Gina Stewart, Britany MacArther and Ashley Ryer. Their time of 9:09.24 improved the previous record of 9:13.21 set in 2009 by McMaster University, and was just off the CIS standard of 9:09.06. The team is confident, and are currently ranked 3rd in the CIS.

Other top Dalhousie performances include Simon’s Watts and James Gillis’ first and second place high jump efforts with 2.08 metres and 1.95 metres, respectively, Ashley Ryer’s third place 1500-metre time of 4:35.05, which saw her pass four runners over the last 100 metres in an outstanding finishing kick.

Seth London’s third place effort of 15.05m in the weight throw was also noteworthy, and the Men’s 4×800-metre team of Justin Blades, Andrew Falkenham, Kahmall McCabe, and Dan Gorman placed third with a  time of 7:47.33.

Dalhousie also saw a quartet of athletes finishing just outside the medals in fourth place, with Rebecca Haworth continuing to shine in the high jump with a personal best of 1.70 metres. Daniel Yetman triple jumped to 13.10 metres and Chris Sharpe threw 13.83 metres in shot put, which also got them fourth-place finishes. Justin Blades had a very quick personal best of 1:20.15 in the 600-metre race, also worth a fourth-place finish.

“I felt the team performed very well considering the difficult travel schedule and the depth of competition,” head coach Peter Lord said.

Next up for the Tigers is the Dal Super Sunday Meet on Feb. 6 at Dalplex.

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