Canadian Operating and Beneath Armour have teamed up for the 2024 Canadian U Sports activities indoor observe and discipline season to spotlight a number of the prime homegrown skills throughout the nation. For the previous eight weeks, we’ve put a highlight on a number of the greatest up-and-coming collegiate athletes, and eventually, we’ve reached the most important meet of the U Sports activities season: the 2024 U Sports activities Indoor Observe and Area Championships in Winnipeg.
All through the season, tons of of U Sports activities athletes have crushed their private bests, however this closing award will go to a female and male U Sports activities observe and discipline athlete who achieved a breakthrough efficiency on the U Sports activities championship. Sprinter Emmett Bravakis of the College of Toronto Varsity Blues and multi-event athlete Sienna MacDonald of the College of Calgary will obtain prime honours for the 2023-2024 season.
These athletes shall be featured on Canadian Operating and awarded an Beneath Armour prize pack together with the brand new UA Infinite Elite coaching shoe.
Guelph Gryphons win sixth straight U Sports activities Observe and Area Championships
Feminine Athlete of the Week: Sienna MacDonald–ladies’s pentathlon
On the subject of MacDonald’s accolades from the U Sports activities Championships, it’s robust to know the place to begin. The 21-year-old from Airdrie, Alta., gained the ladies’s pentathlon by a margin of 370 factors, setting a brand new private document of 4,164 factors. She did this whereas additionally competing within the ladies’s lengthy bounce and ladies’s 60m hurdles—two different occasions she additionally gained outright (in 8.20 seconds within the hurdles and 6.02 metres within the lengthy bounce). MacDonald racked up three particular person gold medals, incomes 30 of her faculty’s 87 complete factors to assist the Calgary Dinos safe a crew bronze medal.
“I knew going into the meet that I had a chance to get triple gold, nevertheless it was going to be fairly tough,” says MacDonald on her end result. “I used to be a bit shocked.”
For MacDonald, she says her most important aim was to compete arduous and are available out of the championships wholesome. “I understand how taxing the meet is on the physique,” she says. “I knew [triple gold] was a risk, however I wasn’t going into it with added strain or expectations.”
When requested if MacDonald’s weekend went completely, she stated no. “I actually wished to get that 60m hurdle document, however for a way drained my legs have been, I’m proud of the way it all went down,” she says. “My most important aim is to be constant.”
MacDonald is having fun with some downtime to cap off her record-setting indoor season however plans to get again to the observe quickly. “I’m trying into some worldwide meets in the intervening time,” she says. “Attempting to do some occasions exterior of Calgary; as a lot as I like competing right here, I must see new faces and compete in opposition to completely different ladies.”
Male Athlete of the Week: Emmett Bravakis–males’s 300m
Final weekend, College of Toronto sprinter Emmett Bravakis skilled each runner’s championship dream. Bravakis, not thought-about the favorite to win the lads’s 300m occasion on the 2024 U Sports activities Observe and Area championships, shocked the sphere by delivering a private greatest efficiency within the heats. He then added one other private greatest 33.72-second run within the closing, profitable U Sports activities gold. This victory marked a big achievement for Bravakis, who had beforehand gained silver in the identical occasion final 12 months, and bronze in 2022.
His time of 33.72 seconds stands because the second-fastest 300m time in Varsity Blues program historical past. “I knew I used to be match, as a result of I didn’t should push via the road within the warmth, and I PB’d anyway,” says Bravakis. “I knew after the heats, I simply needed to go run my race, and I may win.”
The second Bravakis discovered he gained gold was all the things he may have requested for. “I assumed it was a wonderfully executed day,” he says. “I deliberate my season out to peak for this.”
Bravakis’s aim for the upcoming outside season is to keep up the momentum and proceed working quick. He advised Canadian Operating he’s aiming to interrupt his 400m private better of 46.51 open air, a feat that might probably place him for choice on the Canadian 4x400m crew on the Paris Olympics alongside Christopher Morales Williams.
You’ll be able to view the complete listing of Athlete of the Week winners from the 2023-2024 U Sports activities Observe and Area season right here.
