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Olympians burn up the track at Speed River Inferno

Speed River Track and Field Club well represented at annual event

Guelph’s Geneviève Lalonde of the host Speed River Track and Field Club had a feeling early that she was going to have a good run in the women’s 1,500 metres at Wednesday night’s Speed River Inferno track and field meet.
“I knew coming into the race. I’ve always had good races here, right from my first race out on that black track at St. James,” she said after winning in four minutes, 10.91 seconds. “Guelph has always been an awesome atmosphere and great people so I’m just happy to do a race at home and get a good time.”
Lalonde was the runaway winner in the event as there was nobody near to challenge her during the final lap.
“I didn’t know that,” she said. “You’re running a race and you’re just trying to do your best so I went for it and I came home with a victory and came home with a personal best. What a great night to do it here at the Inferno.”
Lalonde finished more than eight and a half seconds ahead of runner-up Rebecca Addison of the U.S.
An Olympic steeplechaser, Lalonde has been working on picking up her speed and it showed.
“I’ve gotten a good dose of speed (practice) in and I’m really ready to run a really fast steeple, but today I showed myself I’m good on the speed end,” she said. “If I can put that over some hurdles, I’m good to go.”
Countless practice sessions on the Alumni Stadium track also paid off as Lalonde decided early in the race that she wanted to go faster than pacer Honor Walmsley was going.
“I planned on going with her. I started off and I had it in my head I was going to break it down into 300s,” Lalonde said. “We did our first 300 and I knew there were 1,200 metres to go and (Speed River coach Dave Scott-Thomas) has made us do enough 1,200 repeats around this track that I know what I can do in a 1,200 around this track so I just went for it. I knew the pace she was going at and I knew the pace I wanted to go at so I just did it.”
Evan Esselink of Courtice, who joined the Speed River club earlier this year, won the Canadian men’s 10,000 metres championship in 29:21.11. A last-lap kick did it for him as he left Newmarket’s Kevin Tree behind. Defending champion and Olympic marathoner Eric Gillis of Guelph paced the field for the first 8,000 metres.
Victoria Coates of Hamilton took the national women’s 10,000 metres title in 33:50.62 as she broke away from the lead pack of three about halfway through and extended her lead throughout.
Other winners included Natassha McDonald of Toronto in the women’s 400 metres, Renny Quow of Trinidad and Tobago in the men’s 400 metres, Shannon Osika of the U.S. in the women’s 800 metres, Robert Heppenstall of Hamilton in the men’s 800 metres, Vanessa Clerveaux of Haiti in the women’s 100-metre hurdles, Jeff Porter of the U.S. in the men’s 110-metre hurdles, Rorey Hunter of Australia in the men’s 1,500 metres, Marissa Papaconstantinou of Toronto in the ambulatory women’s 200 metres, Peter Snider of Waterloo in the ambulatory men’s 200 metres, Charonda Williams of the U.S. in the women’s 200 metres, Dedric Dukes of the U.S. in the men’s 200 metres, Canadian Olympian Kelsie Ahbe in the women’s pole vault and Robbie Gallagher of Vancouver in the men’s long jump.


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