HIGH ACHIEVERS: Ottawa Lions sprinters Wendy Alexis, Jorai Oppong-Nketiah earn top Athletics Canada awards

By Martin Cleary

Sometimes, life gives you an unexpected gift right out of the blue.

And sometimes, there’s a follow-up bonus.

That happened recently to Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club sprinter Wendy Alexis, when she attended an Athletics Ontario winter mini-meet in Toronto at the end of March to see if she could continue her season of running world-record times.

What Alexis didn’t know was that iconic masters sprinter Earl Fee of Toronto had registered for the same competition. Fee, an athletic-looking 97, had an eye on his 12th men’s masters world record, this time in the M95 200 metres.

Alexis was beside herself. She was a friend of Fee’s, but was surprised to see him because he has a limited racing schedule.

Being in the shadow of 100 years old, Fee didn’t know many of the competitors, but Alexis, 71, took care of that. Alexis kept Fee company in the stands before he prepared for his race.

Alexis’ meet, which ended with a non-historic run of 9.25 seconds over 60 metres, finished about two hours before Fee’s world-record attempt. She thought about driving home to Ottawa after her race, but decided to stay and support Fee in his important indoor meet of the 2025-26 season.

It was worth the wait as Fee stormed to a world-record time of 48.89 seconds, overturning the previous global mark of 50.40 seconds by Greece’s Konstantinos Chatziemmanouil.

“I wanted to see his race. It was a phenomenal race,” said Alexis, who later helped Fee with the necessary paperwork for World Masters Athletics to approve his time.

“It’s always a treat to watch him. He’s called The Great Earl. To see him run like that at 97, it’s so inspiring.”

When Alexis returned to her Ottawa home after the five-hour drive from Toronto, she checked her emails. There was one from Athletics Canada, which took over the operation of the masters athletics program in Canada a few years ago.

The Athletics Canada email informed Alexis she had won the Earl Fee Award as the masters track athlete of the year for 2025. She was overwhelmed, again.

“I know what a great athlete he is and to be selected winner of the award in his name is special for me, especially just having spent the day with him,” Alexis explained.

“He’s extraordinary. He’s unbelievable to watch. He looks like an athlete. There’s nothing about him that looks old.”

Alexis was extraordinary in her own right in 2025 as she posted world-record times for the first time in her 21-year masters sprinting career.

In the W70 100 metres, she broke the world masters record six times and brought it down to 14.44 seconds. She lost her world record last November to Chile’s Sara Montecinos, who ran 14.37 seconds.

Alexis dipped under the 200-metre world record three times with a best clocking of 30.33 seconds.

At the 2025 world masters indoor athletics championships in Gainesville, Florida, she won the W65 60-metre dash in 8.95 seconds. A few days later, she turned 70 and was eligible to set world-record times in that class and she did that three times in the 200 metres, finishing at 30.33 seconds.

“I was excited,” Alexis said about earning the Earl Fee Award. “It wasn’t on my radar.

“It’s kind of nice now that Athletics Canada has absorbed us (masters). Our awards and accomplishments aren’t separate. We feel more inclusive. I was thrilled (winning the award) because there were a lot of people equally deserving.”

At the same time Alexis was named the top masters athlete, another sprinter from the Lions was honoured with the Myrtle Cook Trophy.

Jorai Oppong-Nketiah was named the country’s top youth female athlete.

In 2025, Oppong-Nketiah won the Canadian women’s U20 200-metre final for the second consecutive year. She was timed in 23.54 seconds. Oppong-Nketiah also captured the 100-metre title in 11.44 seconds.

At the Athletics Ontario championships, she won the 200 metres in 23.63 seconds and was second in the 100 metres in 11.46 seconds.

Oppong-Nketiah, who will attend the University of Kentucky in September on an athletic scholarship out of Louis-Riel high school, placed second in the girls’ senior 100 metres in 11.88 seconds.

“She’s an amazing kid,” said Alexis, who knows Oppong-Nketiah through Lions practices, but trains in a different group. “She has done a lot, has a lot of potential and is hungry.

“She is a great athlete and has a great mindset. She is great technically, works really hard and loves it. Track is such a hard sport because success is measured in such small increments. She’s so committed.”

The Athletics Canada award list for 2025 also included Ottawa’s Jacqueline Madogo and Gatineau’s Audrey Leduc, who formed half of the women’s 4×100-metre relay team, which won the Cal Bricker Trophy for the women’s single outstanding performance.

Madogo and Leduc joined Sade McCreath and Marie-Éloise Leclair to break the women’s 4×100-metre relay national record with a time of 42.38 seconds in its heat at the 2025 world athletics championships in Tokyo. In the final, Canada placed seventh in 42.82 seconds.

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