Golow topples school record in pentathlon as a plethora of records tumble at McGill Team Challenge
MONTREAL -- Dylan Golow, a neuroscience senior from Barrie, Ont., broke his own McGill record in the men's pentathlon at the 20th annual McGill Team Challenge track and field meet at Richard Tomlinson Fieldhouse, Saturday. The two-day competition, billed as the largest indoor track meet in Canada, attracted 749 athletes and 21 universities, 19 of them CIS institutions. Among the highlights were two Quebec provincial records, six new meet standards, two fieldhouse marks and one McGill record.
The York Lions and Toronto Varsity Blues claimed the respective men's and women's titles. Guelph led all schools with a combined 16 medals between the genders, five of them golden, followed by Toronto (14), York (13), Laval (13) and Dalhousie (12). York claimed the most gold medals with seven (see medal chart below).
McGill captured six medals, including one gold, three silvers and a pair of bronzes. Their lone gold was claimed by the Redmen 4x200m relay squad, clocked in 3:17.99, just shy of the team record (3:17.83). The winning foursome included freshman Ryan McClelland of Toronto, who ran leadoff, followed by juniors Steven Murray of Burlington, Ont., Vincent Parent-Pichette of St. Paul de Joliette, Que., and Javier Montalvo of Closter, N.J..
Golow scored 3,597 points to finish second overall. His previous personal best was 3,571 set in Quebec City last February. Riley van Ryswyk of Surrey, B.C., placed second in the men's pole vault, clearing a height of 4.83 metres to meet the qualifying standard for the CIS championships, March 12-14, at Windsor, Ont. The 5-foot-11, 150-pound electrical engineering senior just missed the McGill record of 4.85 set in 2011 by Maxime Beaumont-Courteau.
McGill's Hao Xu, a mechanical engineering junior from Houston, Texas, also shared a silver-medal finish in the men's high jump, which featured a rare four-way tie with each athlete clearing 1.93m in the same number of jumps. Caila Kucheravy, an accounting junior from Winnipeg, was third in the women's long jump with a leap of 5.63m, shy of the McGill record of 5.72 -- held since 1992 by Kristen Fry -- and the CIS qualifying standard of 5.88. Also finishing on the podium for the Martlets was Helena Reinfels, a third-year geography major from Puslinch, Ont., who scored 3,146 points for a third-place finish in the women's pentathlon. The school record is 3,515 set by Alana Battiston in 2013.
(SEE McGILL'S TOP RESULTS IN CHART BELOW)
Laval's Charles Philibert-Thiboutot, a 24-year-old middle-distance runner from Quebec City, accounted for a whopping six records. He finished atop the podium in the men's 1,000m, establishing a Quebec senior record, along with fieldhouse and meet marks in a sizzling two minutes, 21.02 seconds. He erased the previous provincial mark of 2:22.09, set by Tommy Lecours in Winnipeg on March 9, 2012. Philibert-Thiboutot also smashed the Quebec, fieldhouse and meet records in the 1500m, crossing the line in 3:43.21. It bettered his own Quebec record of 3:45.26 set on Jan. 25, 2014.
Among other marks to tumble was the women's 4x200 relay, won by the Western Mustangs in 1:40.48, with a fousome composed of Joy Spear Chief-Morris of Lethbridge, Alta., in the leadoff leg, followed by Jen Barbon of London, Ont., Sarah Clancy of Toronto and Rachael Muma of St. Thomas, Ont. They surpassed the previous mark of 1:40.74 held by another Western quartet since 2013.
The final meet record to fall was in the men's pentathalon, where Guelph's Taylor Corney racked up 3,848 points, surpassing the previous mark of 3,745 set by Mark Chenery in 2011.
A special men's 5000m race was held for elite runners and was won by Sami Jibril, a 25-year-old native of Rome who emigrated to Canada when he was three and was raised in Brampton, Ont. This distance had never before been run at Tomlinson Fieldhouse so his winning time of 14:22.24 established a new fieldhouse record.
In the men's team scoring, York amassed 104 points to edge Guelph by a slim margin of two and win the meet for the fourth time in two decades.Laval was third with 95, followed by Toronto (69), Dalhousie (54.75), McGill (41.75), Sherbrooke (35.5), Western (33), Ottawa (28.75), McMaster (27), UNB (23.25), Queen's (11), St.FX (8), Carleton (7); Universite d'Orleans (France) (5), Saint Mary's (2), Moncton (2) and Concordia (1).
On the women's side, Toronto cruised to an easy victory with 103.5 points. Guelph placed second, collecting 81, for a one point edge on Dalhousie (80). Western was fourth with 61, followed by Sherbrooke (53), York (53), Laval (49.5), Ottawa (37), McGill (26.5), UQAO (20), UNB (19), St.FX (18), Montreal (13), Moncton (12.5), McMaster (11), Saint Mary's (3), Queen's (3), Concordia (2) and Laurentian (2).
