By Dan Plouffe
Losing a shoe during a cross-country running race is a rare and very unfortunate occurrence for any athlete.
It was a fair bit less likely at the 2026 edition of the national capital high school cross-country running championships since the shoe-sucking mud pits that have graced past races were not present on Oct. 28 at Mooney’s Bay.
And it’s an even more unusual for any unlucky shoeless soul to emerge as the race winner (although not completely unheard of – we remember you Adam Palamar and we know you’re reading).
Now, Palamar was certainly among the favourites to win back in 2008, but Bianca Arabackyj was already a long-shot in the race for this year’s senior girls’ national capital crown – having never previously hit the podium in a conference or city finals event – and that was before the Grade 12 De La Salle runner’s spike came flying off with about a kilometre left in her race.
But in what would make an excellent script for a gambling ad, the underdog rose to the top and scored perhaps the most unlikely victory in meet history.
Tell your 10-year-old kid about what happened, and their reaction could be “was she on drugs?” (true story in this household anyway).
Well no, we’re sure she isn’t, but Arabackyj did feel a surge of panic and adrenaline when she lost her footwear, and she took full flight for the finish line, earning her first career gold medal, and a very dirty sock as a memento to go with it.
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“I was pretty shocked,” Arabackyj reflects. “I’ve never medalled in a race before. I’ve never won. This is my first big win.
“You might have seen my face down the last stretch – I was really surprised. But I’m really happy to surprise myself.”
WATCH | Rogers TV Community News Ottawa: 2026 NCSSAA Cross Country Championships
A fourth-place finisher at the east conference championships a week earlier, Arabackyj started off the 6 km race at a comfortable pace before she joined the lead pack before the half-way point.
“I realized I was pretty relaxed and then I was like, ‘Hey, I can do this,'” recalls the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club athlete.
It was with about 1 km left that Arabackyj thinks she may have tripped on a tree root, sending her right running cleat flying into the air.
“That was kind of the cue to go and sprint for the girl in front of me, and I just went with her,” recounts Arabackyj, who wound up winning by a margin of 6.51 seconds in 23:37.99.
Still baffled, Arabackyj says she has “no idea” how she was able to make such a leap up to the top of the standings this year.
“I was extra determined this year,” considers the athlete who finished 18th in her first city finals in Grade 9. “It’s my last year, and just all the support from my coaches, I think, helped a ton.”
That coaching support included a post-race trek to retrieve Arabackyj’s missing shoe, which, we’re happy to report, was a successful mission.
Nepean Knights 3-peat in senior girls’ team event
The Glebe Gryphons had been the national capital senior girls’ team champions every year for more than a decade until the Nepean Knights halted that record in 2024.
Now the Knights have started a little streak of their own, stretched to three in a row thanks to a comfortable 2026 victory.
“It’s really exciting,” Nepean lead runner Charlotte Eccles highlights. “It’s a great team, a great group of girls.
“We all have great team spirit, and we’re all really close friends, so it’s awesome to do with them.”
Eccles set the pace for Nepean with her sixth-place finish, followed closely by teammate Charlie Fee in seventh and then junior-age runners Priya Bilcock in 13th and Anna Hennigar in 17th, to top the team standings by 26 points over runner-up Glebe.
Avery Vlad (19th) and Nika Wallner (20th) gave the Knights six runners inside the top-20, all in Grade 11 or 10.
Eccles says Nepean’s streak of success in the senior girls’ category inspired her team to work to be even stronger this year.
“There’s a lot of, not pressure, but motivation to do well,” she explains.
It’s an all-new cast leading the Knights senior girls this season, the trailblazers having graduated after last season with nothing but victories in all four years of their high school careers.
“They still check on us and text us good luck,” Eccles notes. “It’s a really nice community.”
Eccles found it was a “hard” race at Mooney’s Bay, particularly following the flat course at the west conference meet a week earlier.
“This was a big change. The hill was like straight up and we had to hit the hill twice in 1k, so you really felt it. Then you had all kinds of different terrain – the sand, the woods and the hill,” outlines Eccles, who also runs for the Lions and skis for Nakkertok Nordic and Team Ontario.
She says the Knights are “super excited” for the chance to race at the OFSAA provincial championships on Nov. 9 at Kivi Park in Sudbury.
“We’re a really tight-knit group,” Eccles adds. “It’s going to be lots of fun.”
Joining Nepean on the start line will be the Glebe lineup of national capital individual bronze medallist Reve McInnes, Leonie Ravard (16th at cities), Camille Cuylits (23rd), Eve Steffler (27th) and Fenna Irish (29th).
Individual OFSAA qualifiers were Arabackyj, silver medallist Laila Lebel of Colonel By, Hillcrest’s Emily Munro (fourth), The Element’s Riley Daniels (fifth) and Ashbury’s Reem Alabed.
