KELOWNA, B.C. – The defending National Champion UBC Thunderbirds are descending on Kelowna for the 2024 U SPORTS Cross Country meet with a goal of getting both the men and women back on the podium this Saturday, November 9.
Breaking through with an historic men's and women's national championship banner sweep in 2023, the T-Birds are fully expecting to be in the mix near the top once again in 2024. But with plenty of personnel changes, there's also a bigger focus on simply competing their best on an individual and team basis come race day.
"Overall we're feeling really good going into U SPORTS but maybe not as clean or smooth a final stretch as we had last year where everything just clicked for us," said UBC lead endurance coach,
Steve Weiler who is tempering expectations to repeat last year's unparalleled success. "Unfortunately we're not quite as strong as we were last year, but that level of excellence is difficult to maintain for sure. Definitely we've dropped off on the men's side where the athletes that we naturally turned over, we haven't been able to directly replace. But on the positive side, we've had some people step up, particularly second year
Maximilien Filion who was top 10 at Canada West in just his second year at UBC which is a great sign."
The UBC men's team did earn their fourth straight Canada West Cross Country title two weeks ago in Northern Alberta where fourth-year T-Bird
Jaiveer Tiwana earned a second consecutive individual bronze.
UBC's women's team finished second at the Canada West championship but head into this week both with plenty of momentum and experience on their side.
"On the women's side, our depth is fairly good," said Weiler. "What we're seeing is we were second strongest in our conference but we do feel we can compete for a medal on race day. In the last few years, Canada West has been the strongest (conference) on the women's side and we're proud to be a key part of that."
Holly MacGillivray led the T-Bird women at the conference meet with a bronze medal finish. The fourth-year will be joined this week by fellow veterans
Jennifer Erickson, who finished fourth at last year's U SPORTS race, and
Rachel Mortimer who tied for 15
th in 2023.
UBC has been used to traveling exceptionally long distances for the national championship, including last year's trek to London, Ontario. But this year's relatively short jaunt to Kelowna not only keeps the 'Birds in their own time zone, it features a course familiar to many on the team having played host to the 2023 Canada West Championship.
"The travel being a little bit easier is certainly nice. For our returning athletes there's a little bit of an advantage having been on the course twice last year. At the same time, with it being a flatter course there's less value in knowing it than there would have been for something like that Canada West course in Alberta two weeks ago. So, a little bit of a benefit but I certainly wouldn't want to overstate it. What there's probably more room for, being a national championship, is that performance on race day; dealing with the stress both internal and external and just executing while getting the job done in a higher stress environment. That will all come into play more than familiarity with the course."
The men's eight kilometre race at Kelowna's Mission Recreation Park gets underway at 12:00 p.m. Saturday followed by the women's race at 1:00 p.m. Both races will be streamed live on
CBCSports.ca with live results available
HERE.
