Scroll down to see photos from the event
The Varsity Blues men’s and women’s track and field teams competed in the Fred Foot Classic on home turf this past weekend, winning several events and performing exceptionally well.
The Fred Foot Classic is an annual track and field meet hosted by the University of Toronto at the Athletic Centre Field House.
This year’s event featured athletes from several universities across Ontario, including Ryerson, York, Ottawa, Queen’s, and Laurier in addition to U of T. Athletes from independent track and field clubs such as the Burlington Legion, Project Athletics Track and Field Club, and London Legion were also present, in addition to competitors not associated with a school or club.
The Classic kicked off on Friday evening with the men’s and women’s pentathlon. Blues’ athlete Maddie Budinger captured first place in the event with a score of 3,814 points.
“The individual events went pretty well, I didn’t [do my] personal best in anything but everything was pretty solid,” said Budinger. “There’s definitely room for improvement in a bunch of events so that’s encouraging for the rest of the season.”
Budinger also competed in several events hosted on Saturday including shot put, where she placed second after throwing 11.93m, despite only throwing once.
The Fred Foot Classic marked the first meet in which Budinger has competed in over eight months, after being out with an injured calf. Budinger saw the meet as an opportunity to get used to competing again and evaluate the results of the training camp she attended over the winter holidays.
“It was nice after training camp to come and get some performances in and see how the training translated into events,” she explained.
Blues’ athlete Marie-Josee LeJour, who won first place in the weight throw with a season’s best distance of 17.27 m, also shone. LeJuor’s 8 am event kicked off her third meet and third win of the season.
“My performance was pretty good considering it was at 8 am. The weight throw, like any throwing event, is really a nervous system event; you have to be quick and ready to throw, and at 8 am that can be complicated since you are not super awake,” she explained.
LeJour was also happy about the results from other U of T weight-throwing athletes.
“All three athletes on the Varsity Blues’ team had personal bests, we had a school record in men’s weights, and we had two oua qualifiers, so it was a pretty good day,” said LeJour.
The Blues also made a strong showing in pole vaulting. Jason Wurster won first place in the men’s event after vaulting 5.40m. In the women’s competition, Blues’ vaulters Heather Hamilton and Allison Harris took first and second place, after vaulting for 4.00m and 3.65m respectively.
On the track, several Blues athletes dominated with Maddie Hunlan coming in second in the 60–metre dash with a time of 7.75 seconds, despite this only being her second meet of the season.
“It was a personal best so I’m happy about that,” said Hunlan. “I actually only had one race this season; I ran at Windsor, at Can-Am, last weekend where I ran the 300–metre and didn’t do as well as I was hoping.”
Several other women runners had great races for the Blues. Sasha Gollish won the 1,000–metre with a time of 2:53.97 and Gabriela Stafford won the 3,000–metre after running the race in 9:46.66.
On the men’s side, several U of T runners also claimed victory in their events. In the 60–metre hurdles, Brandon Wilson finished first with a time of 8.21 seconds. This came after he won the preliminary round with an almost identical time of 8.22s, running alongside fellow Blues’ hurdler Greg MacNeil, who came in a close second with a time of 8.40s.
Despite the second place finish, MacNeil was not ecstatic about his performance.
“It was OK. It was a step in the right direction. It wasn’t the greatest time, but there were parts of the race that were good, so I need to go back, execute, and get better,” said MacNeil.
“I think I won my heat, but the time didn’t reflect the time I wanted to run today, and at the end of the day it is about running fast times when it counts. This is a good step in the right direction,” MacNeil added.
Because of a minor hip injury suffered during the preliminary round, MacNeil chose to sit out the finals to rest, and watched as teammate Wilson took first place.
Other men’s runners did equally well. A notable performance came from Daniel Chen, who claimed first in the 300–metres with a time of 35.95 seconds. In the 3,000–metres, Anton Paulie also came in first for the Blues after finishing the race in just 8:42.75.
Aside from the Varsity Blues, several other high calibre athletes had impressive performances. One standout was Ryerson University’s Miana Griffiths, who is ranked as one of the top 20 female sprinters in the world. Griffiths, who competed in the Pan American games in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2011, and came in fifth in the 100–metre dash at the Canadian National Championships that same year with a time of 11.61, won her 60–metre race by a wide margin.
The meet ended on Saturday afternoon with a men’s and women’s 4×400 metre run. Heat Athletics won the women’s race with a time of 4:14.12 and Brock University took first place in the men’s with a time of 3:40.05.
The Blues next travel to Montreal, where they will compete in the McGill Team Challenge from January 25–26.
