LONDON, Ont. – For the first time in program history, the UBC Thunderbirds are the men's and women's U SPORTS Cross Country National Champions.
Katie Newlove claimed individual gold – the second straight year UBC has done so – to lead the T-Birds' women to their first ever U SPORTS banner while Canada West gold medallist Andrew Davies claimed bronze on Sunday, helping the men's squad to their first Canadian title since 1993.
"I think this is definitely more than we expected for sure to get so many All-Canadians, two championships and Steve Weiler being named coach of the year for both the men's and women's side," said UBC head coach Laurier Primeau following the historic accomplishment. "I think as much as we as coaches feel this was a massive accomplishment, this was really the goal of our team."
Sunday's UBC triumph is the pinnacle of what's been a years-long progression to the top of the podium. The women's team earned a second place finish last year and 2023 saw the breakthrough come by way of a dominant performance.
"It's an incredibly special day," added UBC lead endurance coach, Steve Weiler. "It's incredibly difficult to put all the pieces together across a team of 14 and a competitive race with all these other teams with similar aspirations, but they did an excellent job of listening and buying in and executing well. It's well deserved, they all ran fantastic today."
Newlove's winning time of 28:06.8 saw the third-year from Ottawa cross the finish line more than 11 seconds ahead of Laval's silver medallist, Catherine Beauchemin.
Jennifer Erickson finished fourth in 29:27.4 while Holly MacGillvray made it three Thunderbirds in the top eight, the only team to manage such a feat.
"It's pretty amazing, it's something that as a team we've worked for a long time here, so it's pretty special," said MacGillivray who improved upon her 18
th place finish in 2022. "It definitely speaks to not only everyone who ran today, but all our teammates. It just shows that we could have put a variety of combinations of seven runners out there and I think we would have had similar results. It speaks to the program as a whole and the team culture we're creating, it really allows us to perform on the day."
Marley Beckett repeated her 11th place finish at the 2022 U SPORTS meet with a time of 29:33.5 on the eight kilometre course while Rachel Mortimer and Kyla Becker tied for 15th in 29:37.6, rounding out UBC's scorers and securing the team's first ever U SPORTS title with a 33 point margin of victory over the silver medallists from the host Western Mustangs.
The men's team's first U SPORTS championship in 30 years – and first since re-joining U SPORTS in 2018 – was a tighter battle as UBC clinched the title by just eight points over Laval who repeat as silver medallists.
The Rouge et Or actually had the first two runners cross the line before Andrew Davies' bronze medal finish of 24:24.7. But with three Thunderbirds in the top ten and Dylan Uhrich closing out the scoring five with a 23rd place finish, UBC secured the victory and the blue and gold sweep.
Davies' bronze makes it two in a row for the fifth-year transfer who helped lead McMaster University to the 2022 team title.
"Pretty incredible. I knew throughout the season we always believed we had a chance but it wasn't necessarily anyone predicting us to win," said Davies. "I didn't think that after winning with Mac last year I could feel this good to win with a different team, but it feels just awesome."
Fellow fifth-year T-Bird John Perrier claimed fifth place, crossing the line in 24:44.4, improving his 2022 18th individual finish.
Jaiveer Tiwana ran a tremendous 25:01.4 to claim tenth while Riley Miller – running his final race as a Thunderbird after a five-year career – was the fourth UBC competitor to score, finishing 17th overall.
"From a team perspective, everyone did their job," added Davies. "Riley Miller in his last ever UBC race came through with a huge performance and that's all we needed."
"Our fifth runner, Dylan Uhrich, was as important as Andrew Davies today," said Primeau. "But they also ran really smartly and according to the plan that Steve and the team discussed. We don't want to get out in front and fade, we need to be smart, sensible and moving through the pack in the final two kilometres and they did exactly that."
"The depth is what wins team titles and what will put you on the podium," added Weiler. "We're incredibly proud to have the top number five on both the men's and women's side. Those are crucial points and when you look at the results, ten seconds faster or ten seconds slower, there's a significant difference for the number four and number five runners. Just excellent execution across the board. They got it done, they nailed it."
The sweep at London's Thames Valley Golf Course caps off what can only be described as a perfect season for UBC Cross Country in what has been a pretty amazing few days across the board.
"It's just been a remarkable weekend," added Primeau. "And shout out to some of those other UBC Sports. I know some of our athletes were keeping close tabs on the football game yesterday, women's soccer's in the final, there's just a lot of reasons to celebrate if you're a Thunderbird today."
FULL RESULTS
