TWU Sports Thursday – Olatoke Wins Silver in the 60m at the U SPORTS Championships – Breaks Spartans Record

Edmonton – Trinity Western second-year Praise Olatoke (Glasgow, Scotland) won a silver medal in the 60m at the U SPORTS Championships while breaking the Spartans record with a time of 6.75 Thursday at the Universiade Pavilion.

Olatoke second-place finish saw him trail gold-medal winner Andre Azonwanna (Guelph) by just 0.006.

The Spartan sprinter smashed his own TWU and personal record, bettering the 6.81 he set less than two weeks ago at the Canada West Championships.

Olatoke’s silver medal puts the Spartans men’s team back on the podium after missing out on the medals in 2019. Last year, Olatoke finished sixth at the U SPORTS Championships in the 60m with a time of 6.90.

T&F | @TrinityWestern star Praise Olatoke takes SILVER in the 60m at the U SPORTS Championships while also breaking the Spartans record with a time of 6.75! https://t.co/UO9b6VDZ0j

— TWU Spartans (@TWUSpartans) March 6, 2020

Following his silver-medal winning performance, Olatoke also ran an instrumental anchor leg in the 4x200m preliminaries Thursday evening, helping TWU qualify for Saturday’s 4x200m final (2:25 p.m. MT).

The Canada West gold-medal winning 4x200m team was without injured Ben Tjernagel (New Westminster, B.C.), but thanks to a gutsy fill-in performance from Chris Weiss (West Vancouver), who ran the second leg after having already completed four events in the heptathlon, TWU clocked a time of 1:29.64 to earn a spot in the final.

In the heptathlon, Ethan Foster (Langley, B.C.) sits seventh overall with 2,592 points, while Weiss is ninth, with 2,545 points, through the first four events.

Day 2 of the U SPORTS Championships in Edmonton starts Friday at 12:30 p.m. (MT).

TWU SPARTANS MEDALS (1)

MEN (1)

Silver (1): Praise Olatoke (60m)

TWU RECORDS (1)

60m – Praise Olatoke – 6.75

U SPORTS CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS

TWU RESULTS

*Spartans Record

DAY 1

MEN

60m Preliminaries

2^nd – Praise Olatoke – 6.81Q

60m Final

2^nd – Praise Olatoke – 6.75*

4x200m

8^th – 1:29.64q – Kenny Blackman Jr., Chris Weiss, Romain Tourvieille De Labrouhe, Praise Olatoke   

Heptathlon

Day 1

7^th – Ethan Foster – 2592 points

9^th – Chris Weiss – 2545 points

60m

9^th – Ethan Foster – 7.42

12^th – Chris Weiss – 7.50

Long Jump

4^th – Chris Weiss – 6.53m

6^th – Ethan Foster – 6.40m

Shot Put

5^th – Chris Weiss – 11.36m

8^th – Ethan Foster – 10.94m

High Jump

4^th – Ethan Foster – 1.81m

10^th – Chris Weiss – 1.72m.

TEAM STANDINGS

MEN

1. Guelph, 10

2. Trinity Western, 8

3. Manitoba, 7

4. Saskatchewan, 6

5. Dalhousie, 4

6. Lakehead, 3

WOMEN

1. Guelph, 25

2. Laval, 16

3. Sherbrooke, 15

4. Regina, 10

5. Saskatchewan, 9

6. Western, 8

7. Manitoba, 6

8. Toronto, 5

8. Calgary, 5

10. York, 4

10. Waterloo, 4

10, Dalhousie, 4

13. uPEI, 3

13. McGill, 3