Yves back to winning ways with Laval Rouge et Or

By Anne Duggan

Yves Sikubwabo’s need for change is akin to his need to run.

His most recent change – a move from the University of Guelph to Université Laval this September – has already borne fruit, with a Canadian university individual gold medal and a team title for the Rouge et Or men’s cross-country running team on their Plains of Abraham home course.

“I like change,” smiles Sikubwabo. “Things did not go as I expected when I went to Guelph in terms of running. Any athlete wants to improve, needs to improve, even just a little bit. But my last three years at Guelph were not solid.”

After earning a 7th place finish in his rookie season at Guelph in 2012, the Glebe Collegiate Institute grad was unable to progress to the podium in the three following years.

But change can be difficult, even for someone who embraces it like Sikubwabo.

~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~

“Thinking about change was definitely hard this time,” signals the 2011 OFSAA XC champ, who won on his home course that year as well, at the Hornets Nest. “Changing everything: schools, and language.”

However, Sikubwabo was quickly drawn into the Laval team and their aspirations to be champions.

“My goal this year became to win as a team. That was my main focus,” notes the 1st-place finisher by 5 seconds in a time of 30:51 for 10 km. “It is a different environment here at Laval. It is a lot of fun. We believed we could win. We knew we were going to win. It meant a lot to me to be part of this.”

It was the first time that the Laval men’s XC team won a national title, though they blew away the competition with their score of 43 placement points – less than half of anyone else. The fact that it was on their home turf was a bonus, inspiring much splashing of bubbly stuff at the awards ceremony.

Sikubwabo’s affinity for change has pulled him through more change than most could imagine. In the last six years of his life, he has traveled far in terms of geography, language, culture, education, family and sport.

In 2010, he left his home country as the lone Rwandan athlete to qualify for the World Junior Track and Field Championships in Moncton, N.B. A 17-year-old orphan of a Hutu mother and a Tutsi father killed in the Rwandan genocide, Sikubwabo was urged by his aunt to remain safe in Canada, so he found his way by Greyhound bus to Ottawa with little more than his shorts and running shoes and claimed refugee status.

While living in a homeless shelter, his running ability caught the attention and support of Ottawa’s running community, and a couple with grown children who offered a him a place in their home. A short time later, they became his adoptive parents.

After graduating from Glebe, Sikubwabo enrolled in mechanical engineering at Guelph, despite speaking minimal English upon arriving in Canada 2 years earlier.

Sikubwabo’s latest change has certainly did have a detrimental consequence to his academic career. Most of his credits didn’t transfer over, leaving him with another 3.5 years of studies ahead in pursuit of an engineering physics degree.

Though he has just one more year of university eligibility, the 23-year-old doesn’t see that as a problem since he could still train with the team and change his focus to higher-level national and international meets.

There is one thing that Sikubwabo refuses to alter, however.

“I will never change my home address. It is in Ottawa, where my parents live,” pledges Sikubwabo, who officially became a Canadian citizen in February 2015 at a ceremony in Ottawa.

What made recent move to a new school in Quebec City especially easy, he highlights, was the fact that his adoptive sister lives there.

“My family means so much to me,” Sikubwabo underlines. “I always like to thank my parents. I couldn’t be doing any of this without my parents.”