By Tyler Reis-Sanford
The Canadian Track and Field League closed its fourth season on Friday night at Terry Fox Athletic Facility, delivering on the promise of elite athletic performances, and even a world record.
Held in conjunction with the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club’s Twilight Series meet, the world-best mark came from the open competition before the curtain dropped for the CTFL Finals when masters sprinter Wendy Alexis ran the fastest 100 metres ever for women aged 70-74.
The Lions sprinter’s time of 14.54 seconds knocked a full tenth of a second off the record she established exactly a month earlier. Alexis had thought that she broke her record in between, where she ran a 14.51 two weeks earlier, only to have the wind reading come in at 2.1 m/s, just 0.1 over the allowable limit.
“I just knew I had to get out there and do it again,” Alexis indicated. “As masters, we’re very competitive. We’re the same as those young ones who get on the track, except we have grandkids and arthritis.”
At age 70, Alexis said that as a masters athlete she’s more prone to injury, and jokingly referred to herself as “the queen of injuries.” She credits her coach Sean Burges, sports medicine doctor Darrell Menard, and her physiotherapist (and former chief physiotherapist for the South African national track team) Theo Calligeris for keeping her in peak condition.
“I’m like Humpty Dumpty,” Alexis cracked. “I fall down and they get me back up again.”
Ottawa’s Sydney Smith was one of several local athletes to win CTFL events when she surged past Sadie-Jane Hickson late for a dramatic victory in 2:05.09 to top a tactical women’s 800 m race.
The Lions club athlete scored the most points for her CTFL Spitfires team this season with 71, and the second most across the entire league for the 2025 season.
“It felt good. There’s something special about running on your home track,” signalled Smith. “Being on the track you train on every day, it’s extra special.”
Lions shotputters Liam Davis and Jessica Gyamfi also won their CTFL Finals events, as did CANI Athletics’ Lionel Tshimanga Muteba (200 m). The performances came not even a week after their provincial club title and just a few weeks outside of the 2025 Canadian Track and Field Championships, set for July 31-Aug. 3 at Terry Fox.
Despite track and field often being seen as an individual sport, Smith said spectators often misunderstand how much impact a good team and culture can make.
“Unless you’re in the sport, I think how important the team aspect is gets overlooked. So much of it is a team sport,” highlighted the four-time women’s 800 m provincial champion. “It’s really cool now that we have the CTFL. It’s really creating that new team aspect. It’s building a new culture.”
When CTFL founder Quinn Lyness of Ottawa first started the league, his hope was to create a space to develop and reward elite track and field athletes who didn’t have the traditional pathways to success that a lot of other sports offer.
The league currently boasts four teams – the Bears, Spitfires, Huskies and Artics – each of which drafts athletes to compete across 10 different events. Each team has three spots per event and gender, and are able to trade, release, and draft new athletes each year.
To further help develop the sport for younger athletes, the league also held its first ever CTFL x NB Trials on Sunday at the Terry Fox. The Trials offer high school athletes the chance to not only gain confidence and experience, but also the opportunity to be drafted to a CTFL team and compete against the best of the best.
This year, high school stars Will Batley and Zach Jeggo both contributed first- and second-place points to the Bears’ championship season.
“A lot of these high school athletes weren’t able to get exposure to the highest level of competition,” Lyness noted. “We’re at a point now where we’ve got high school athletes going against guys in their prime. It means a lot for the growth of the sport.”
Like the athletes themselves, the CTFL has continued to take massive steps forward in its four years, with 2025 marking all-time highs in prize pools for athletes (over $36,000 in total), fan attendance, and social media views.
Lyness said social media has played a big part in helping grow the league, but can also be another important source of income for the often underpaid athletes. The CTFL’s social media presence has boomed, he added, noting that their online presence has grown to more than a million views in 2025, and is on track to eclipse the CFL in many key metrics.
Although the CTFL has seen considerable growth year over year, founder Quinn Lyness doesn’t have any immediate plans to expand the league.
“We’re in the black, which is good,” Lyness said. “But I think right now the focus is on best serving the athletes we already have on our four teams, making sure they get paid as much as they can, that they’re taken care of. Maybe in a couple years we’ll look at expanding to six teams, but not right now.”