Confederation College Thunderhawks cross country running teammates Jamie Kovacic and Tony Elikana took different journeys to last weekend’s Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association championships in Truro, N.S.
Kovacic was making her third trip to the nationals, while Elikana was competing in only his third meet of any kind.
“The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy, but a lot of fun as well,” said Elikana, who is originally from South Sudan. “I gained a lot of experience this year with practicing with the college team and that helped me out a lot to get to this point.”
“It was great to have another opportunity to go back to the nationals,” added Kovacic, who was born and raised in Thunder Bay.
“It’s a different level of competition and I went in with the goal of placing higher than I did in previous years. I did a lot more pinpoint training on my form and upping my mileage towards trying to get that result.”
After finishing second at the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association championships in Cambridge, Ont. on Nov. 4, Kovacic achieved her goal at the nationals.
She earned an 18th place result with a time of 23:46 on a technical six-kilometre course in Truro.
“There were a lot of turns on the course and you had to make sure that you kept your speed up through the corners so that you didn’t lose any time,” Kovacic said.
“There were a few tight points on the track, including a fence that we all had to go through, which was a little bit different from anything that I had seen on a course before.
“I think it helped that I had been to the nationals before though so I knew what to expect there and I was seeing some familiar faces from the other schools.”
Elikana — who took part in his first competitive cross country race in May — set a new personal best time of 27:18 on an eight-km course on his way to a 41st place finish.
“My overall speed is a lot better than what it was when I first started,” Elikana said. “The time I spent training with our coach (Alain Gosselin) and the rest of the team helped me increase my speed going into these meets.
“There’s a lot more hills from what I’m used to in regular running, but that’s something I’m getting more and more used to each time I run.”
Gosselin, who was in his first season as head coach after serving as an assistant coach for the Thunderhawks for five years, was impressed with Kovacic and Elikana’s performances.
“They far exceeded every expectation that we had,” Gosselin said. “They ran well, they ran smart and they were just professional competitors.”
The Thunderhawks — who are sponsored by the school’s student union for their meets — had four competitors take part in the provincials this year.
Callum Richter and Quinn Dodds joined Kovacic and Elikana at the provincial championships, which were hosted by Conestoga College.
“There’s some challenges for us compared to the schools elsewhere in the province in terms of being able to travel to meets, but we compete in the Kamview trail run series and the runners take advantage of their opportunities whenever they can get them,” Gosselin said.
“We made a lot of strides this year and we hope to see that continue next fall. Jamie’s going to be helping out a bit on the coaching side of things and we hope that Tony is back for a second year, but we won’t know what the rest of the team will be like for sure until we get to the spring and start recruiting.”
