SASKATOON – The McGill women's track and field team reached the podium in the 4x200 relay for the first time in school history at the U SPORTS indoor national championships, Saturday as the three-day competition wrapped up at the Saskatoon Fieldhouse.
The Martlets finished third in the 4x200 relay, crossing the finish line in one minute, 41.47 seconds. Guelph won the race in 1:37.53, followed by Saskatchewan in 1:38.13. Guelph initially posted a podium finish but they were later disqualified.
The McGill quartet featured NCAA transfer
Donna Ntambue, a first-year economics major from Montreal-North
, along with a pair of sophomores from Vancouver,
Lola Ross-McLennan (industrial relations) and
Bethany Walton-Knight (physics), in addition to
Vanessa Lu Langley, a chemical engineering junior from Ottawa.
This was McGill's first medal in the 4x200 since the national championship began in 1982. It marked the team's first relay medal at any distance since 2012 when the 4x800 won bronze with a foursome that featured
Aimee Castro,
Sarah McCuaig,
Alexandra Morin-Boucher and
Charlene Puel. The result was also the first medal at Nationals by any member of the Martlets since 2019, when
Abby Woods won gold in the triple jump with a McGill record leap of 12.46 metres.
Ntambue, who was also a strong medal hopeful in the 60m sprint, finished sixth in that event, which was won by Guelph's
Jacqueline Madogo in a blistering 7.29 seconds, followed by Toronto's
Onome Gbinije (7.40) and Calgary's
Dawn Richardson-Wilson (7.42). Ntambue's time was 7.46, tying former Martlet
Jorden Savoury for the third-fastest time school record. Ntambue also holds the top two spots in the McGill record book, with a 7.43 in the preliminaries at Nationals and a school record 7.38 at the McGill Team Challenge last January.
Among other McGill results was a 12th-place finish in the pole vault for
Rosalie Lupien, an economics junior from Longueuil, Que., who cleared a height of 3.28m, just shy of her personal best (3.30m).
Teammate
Ella Villeneuve from Richmond, Vt., was 13th in the weight-throw with a toss of 10.63m. The 19-year-old science freshman had qualified for Nationals with a gold medal throw of 12.78m at the RSEQ championship meet.
McGill, which qualified six women and four men for the 2023 championship meet, finished 16th of 27 schools on the women's side and 24th in the men's division. Guelph swept both titles.
Guelph coasted to the U SPORTS women's title with 166 points overall, finishing ahead of Western (66), Saskatchewan (65), Laval (63) and Alberta (54) to round out the top five. Other RSEQ teams included Montreal (12th, 14 pts), McGill (16th, 9 pts) and Sherbrooke (17th; 5 pts).
All gold medalists earn first-team All-Canadian honours, while a silver medal merits second-team status.
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SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca
@EarlZukerman (twitter)
