By Martin Cleary
For a few fleeting moments, Eliezer Adjibi of C.A.N.I. Athletics and Audrey Leduc of Gatineau were world record holders in the 4×100-metre mixed relay.
Adjibi, Leduc, Marie-Éloise Leclair and Duan Asemota broke the world mark with a time of 40.08 seconds in their opening heat at the World Athletics Relays in Gaborone, Botswana. Their time and placing qualified the Canadian team for the World Athletics Ultimate Championships later this year in Budapest.
“We know that we can go out there and compete. We have been practising and we have had relay camps throughout the year,” Adjibi said in an Athletics Canada release.
“Of course, we came here and wanted the win, but couldn’t get the win. Coming with a silver is always something that we cannot complain about. We also wanted the world record, but it unfortunately didn’t happen.”
In the second heat, Jamaica claimed the world record, breaking the 40-second barrier with a reading of 39.99 seconds. In the 4×100-metre mixed final, Canada placed second in 40.23 seconds.
After posting a seasonal-best 42.39 seconds in its women’s 4×100-metre heat, Leduc fiercely powered down the final stretch to give Canada second place in a Canadian-record 42.17 seconds and a berth in the worlds. Sade McCreath, Leclair and Donna Ntambue completed the speedy quartet.
Ottawa Lions’ Lauren Gale posted the fastest Canadian split of 50.17 seconds as she joined Zoe Sherar, Jasneet Nijjar and Savannah Sutherland to register a bronze medal-winning time of 3:22.66 in the women’s 4×400-metre relay final and earn their ticket to worlds.
“It’s a crazy feeling,” Gale said after the race. “I’m very proud to have ‘world medallist’ on my resume now.”
The Canadian men’s team of Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and Andre De Grasse ran a world-leading 37.56 seconds to win its heat, but finished seventh in the final, while Blake suffered an injury.
OTTAWA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETES WIN 5 OFSAA BADMINTON CHAMPIONSHIP MEDALS
Colour the OFSAA badminton championships bronze inside a golden frame for the 28 student-athletes on the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association team.
Ottawa players scored third-place results in the open boys’ singles and open mixed doubles categories in Toronto, bronzes in the high-school singles main draw and B consolation, and everything was surrounded by the gold medal in the mixed doubles B flight.
Colonel By’s Reath Roth earned his third career OFSAA medal, when he won five of his seven matches, the last victory bringing him the boys’ open singles bronze.
He defeated Jordan Lei of the York Region for his first bronze medal to go with silver medals in 2025 and 2023 in the varsity sport. Roth, a nationally-ranked junior player in doubles, lost both his matches to Kevin Yang of the York Region in the main draw quarterfinals and consolation round.
For the second year in a row, Celine Caravally of Merivale celebrated a medal at the end of the open mixed doubles competition. A silver medallist in 2025 with Aayush Saha, Caravally and Michael Qu placed third in mixed doubles with their second win over Lance Li and Monica Li of the Peel Region. Caravally and Qu won five of their seven matches.
NCSSAA athletes owned both bronze medals in the boys’ high-school singles as Earl of March’s Dexter Hu seized third place in the A flight, while Holy Trinity’s Vidhun Nayayakkara survived 10 matches over three days for the B-flight bronze.
Hu posted his sixth win in his seventh match against Tri Nguyen of Central Western Ontario, while Nayayakkara turned back Chinmay Damani of South Western Ontario in his final bout. Kevin Chang of Merivale fell in the boys’ high-school singles semifinals and the consolation semifinals.
Dominique Church and Eva Gagogz-Faure split their first two mixed high-school doubles matches, but when they dropped into the B flight, they won five straight matches and the secondary gold medal.
Church and Gagogz-Faure defeated Adrian Tang and Sophia Hung of Colonel By in their journey to the gold.
Vinuki Madagamanna and Thinul Madagamanna of Glebe won their first three girls’ high-school doubles matches before losing in the semifinals as well as the consolation semifinals.
Jaiwei Tang and Kaiwen Wang of Earl of March reached the boys’ high-school doubles consolation semifinals. In the girls’ high-school singles, Jenny Jiang of Longfields-Davidson Heights was a consolation semifinalist, while Nadine Buchanan of Franco-Cité was eliminated in the consolation quarterfinals.
SEMI-FINAL BERTH FOR KATE MILLER AT WORLD CUP DIVING SUPER FINAL
Olympian Kate Miller of the Nepean-Ottawa Diving Club reached the semifinals of the women’s 10-metre competition at the World Cup Super Final in Beijing.
After winning her head-to-head match over Sarah Jodoin Di Maria of Italy by a score of 200.40 points to 174.40 points, Miller qualified for the semifinals, which was comprised of two groups of three divers each. The top two moved into the final round.
Miller finished with a score of 301.35 points and placed third in her semifinal.
In the women’s synchro 10 metres, Miller and Katelyn Fung scored 275.82 points for seventh place in the field of eight teams.
11 LOCAL PLAYERS, 2 COACHES NAMED FOR EAST-WEST UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL GAME
The National Capital Region will be well represented at the East-West Bowl football game at the University of Waterloo on Saturday. The game will feature 107 players, who are entering their third or fourth year and approaching the 2027 CFL Draft, from 27 U Sports football programs.
Team East will have four players from each of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees and the Carleton University Ravens.
The Gee-Gees players are runningback Soulemayne Camara of Chateauguay, PQ, offensive lineman Zachary Seguin of Ottawa, defensive lineman Alias Amelin of Russell, ON and linebacker Nassim Regragui of Pincourt, PQ.
Representing the Ravens are quarterback Elijah Barnes of Ancaster, ON, defensive lineman DeAndre McKenzie of Toronto, linebacker Justin Belanger of Ottawa and defensive back Jake Henderson of Ottawa. Carleton also will have two coaches on the East team in Mack Holliday, special teams co-ordinator, and Tunde Adeleke, defensive back assistant.
Team West also will have an Ottawa flavour with offensive lineman Reed Cloutier of the University of Western Mustangs, defensive lineman Clark Leonard of the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds and defensive back Cody Croucher of the Acadia University Axemen.
END NOTES
· Three athletes and one coach from the Phoenix Taekwondo Academy will be part of the 52-member Canadian team at the Senior Pan American Taekwondo Championships in Rio de Janeiro. Laila Khan, women’s -53 kilograms, Leonarda Andric, women’s -67 kilograms and Alexandra Charron, women’s -73 kilograms, will compete in their Kyourugi competitions and George Koh is on the national coach staff. Lisa Gibson of the Orleans Taekwondo Academy will wear Canadian colours in the women’s U60 Poomsae division.
· Utility player Tyler Branchaud of Metcalfe was on the roster for Canada, which placed eighth at the World Men’s U23 Softball World Cup in Sincelejo, Colombia. Canada defeated Colombia 5-2 in its final game to secure eighth place. Branchaud started six of eight games, had only one hit (a double), but also reached base with three walks and one hit by pitch.
· Canada swept a three-game series over Puerto Rico to win the Americas women’s baseball qualifying round and advance to the World Baseball Softball Confederation Women’s Baseball World Cup Group in Rockford, Illinois. In the third game, an 8-3 decision, Gatineau’s Ela Day-Bedard drove in two runs with a triple and had an overall batting average of .600 with three hits in five at-bats.
· Ottawa’s Alex Cataford will be one of three sport directors, when the new NSN Cycling Team makes its debut in the Giro d’Italia, beginning Friday. Osgoode’s Derek Gee-West of Lidl-Trek will make his third Giro appearance, after a fourth-place overall result in 2025 and recording six top-10 results in his career breakout with the defunct Israel-Premier Tech.
· McGill University rowing crews won both the men’s and women’s varsity eight races in Toronto during the 100th anniversary of the Toronto McGill Challenge. Oliver Snoxell of Ottawa was in the men’s boat, which won the Barber Pole Trophy. Varya Kataria of Ottawa was the coxswain in the women’s boat, which was presented the Varsity Cup for the first time.
Martin Cleary has written about amateur sports for over 52 years. A past Canadian sportswriter of the year and Ottawa Sports Awards Lifetime Achievement in Sport Media honouree, Martin retired from full-time work at the Ottawa Citizen in 2012, but continued to write a bi-weekly “High Achievers” column for the Citizen/Sun.
When the pandemic struck, Martin created the High Achievers “Stay-Safe Edition” to provide some positive news during tough times, via his Twitter account at first and now here at OttawaSportsPages.ca.
Martin can be reached by e-mail at martincleary51@gmail.com and on Twitter @martincleary.