Thunderbirds Rock the BC Cross Country Championships – Saanich, Saturday, Oct 23rd, 2021

Saturday saw TBIRDS produce an outstanding day of performances. Everyone ran with great focus and commitment and it was great to see team-mates supporting each other and enjoying watching each member of the team compete.

The team came away with 11 podium finishes and 32 top ten finishes.

The JD races saw a Thunderbirds victory in the team competition, narrowly edging out Surrey's Oceans Athletics by a score of 67 to 58. Tamara Hamze dominated the girls’ race, finishing second amongst both boys and girls, followed by Emma McCutcheon in 7th, Danielle Ryan (11th), Abbey Lane (14th) and Logan foster picking up 21st in the boys’ race. Kelly Keats ran a strong second half to close on the field and finish 5th among the 10 year olds, with teammate Matthew Haberl having his strongest race of the season in 9th. In the girls’ race Chioma Uzozie was unfortunate to get sick on the day, her recent results indicating that she would have been challenging for the lead. Romina Suarez Leon finished 19th in her first run for TBIRDs. The 11 year old race saw Simon McCutcheon close his race strongly, snatching 3rd in a really close finish. He was followed home by Michael Lam in 10th, and John Martindale (11th), while on the girls‘ side Charlotte Lang had her best performance of the season , finishing just out of the medals in 5th place, with Maddie Blesch, Carly lane, and Avery Charles packing well as a team in 12th, 14th and 16th respectively. After pushing the early pace, Harris Boomer hung on for 3rd place, teammate Elijah Clarke storming past in over the last 500m to take 2nd place in the 3km for 13 year old boys’ race. Ever improving Ben Smith finished strongly in 6th place, Nick Jang taking 13th not too far behind. Jeevut Sajjan and Taylor Dewitt both had strong runs for the girls; Jeevut claiming a bronze, a mere two seconds in front of Taylor in 5th. Jamie Armstrong and Lily Mindell were jumping for joy after going 1, 2 in the 12 year old division; Paige Bailey making it 3 of the top five spots for TBIRDS. Declan Kirker, Maahi Marwaha, and Henry Lazare ran to 9th, 11th and 16th place finishes. In the Midget event, Addyson Benefield turned a few heads using a fast end of race kick to narrowly snatch 2nd place in the15 age group; Darla Pitkanen taking 10th place. Ava Rodway ran well to earn 10th spot in the 14 year old division. Kai Martland and Max Holmes, both having very strong runs, fought it out in the men’s 16 race; Kai running a great last km to take silver to Max’s 4th place. The youth event saw had Maya Baechler and Nanette Novak-Klotz earned 5th place finishes in the 16 and 17 age groups, while on the men’s side Paul van Ramsdonk was the 3rd 17 year-old; Renaldo Miya and Jordon Westiuk running to 10th and 11th places. Mitchell Klassen and Peter Neill were the 8th and 10th 18 year-olds to finish. In the Junior races, Olivia Uliana was the 3rd 19 year-old to finish.

Not to be outdone by the younger athletes, our senior runners also produced some outstanding results. In the women’s 8km the club’s trio of runners, Sandra Kilmartin, Madelyn Brunt and Katrina Allison all had strong races in a very competitive field finishing 9th, 13th and 17th respectively. John Gay dominated the early stages of the Men’s Senior race, with 2nd place finisher, the club’s coach and summer student, Thomas Nobbs, clawing back John’s lead over the last half of the race to finish just 11 sec behind. The depth of the men’s race can be seen in Thomas Broach (5th place) and Christian Gravel (9th place) finishing just 10 seconds apart. Rounding out the Tbird mens’ senior results were: Sebastian Cino (28th), Dayton Bath (31st), Zac Labrie (33rd), Evan Miller (34th), Ammad Hussain (35th), Yabi Davidoff (38th), Evan Wong (46th), and Kyran Alikamik (57th).

Congratulations to all who ran on representing the club admirably.

Jamie Armstrong and Lily Mindell after their 1-2 finish in the Girls’ 12 y.o. race.