Following yet another successful Canada West racing season, the UBC Thunderbirds have travelled to Sherbrooke, Quebec for the 2025 U SPORTS Cross Country Championships which take place Saturday, November 8.
In a year which has seen breakout performances from the likes of
Maximilien Filion and
Mackenzie Campbell, the T-Birds are looking at this, the biggest stage of their season, to put forward their best overall efforts yet, while also providing valuable experience for a younger group of athletes which will be pushing towards the podium for years to come.
"Our women are now ranked fourth so our goal is to be on the podium and overall just to have our best race of the season. We'll just do our very best and see how we stack up," said UBC lead endurance coach,
Steve Weiler. "Across the board, our expectations are typically to match or improve on our team rankings. For what the men's team has done this year, top ten would be a good day at U SPORTS and top eight would be a very good day for the men's team."
Despite one of the youngest overall groups competing at the recent Canada West championships, the T-Birds' men's squad put forward a third place overall finish while a more experienced women's side claimed team silver.
Along with Campbell – who took individual bronze at the Canada West race – the UBC women will also be led Saturday by the likes of fellow veteran T-Birds
Sarah MacGillivray,
Elysse Fleming,
Abby Ylipahkala, and
Amelia Pfohl.
It's the overall depth of the T-Birds' women which has the squad turning heads across the country. The top five runners from each school contribute to the team's overall point total and it's those final two placings which can prove to be a massive difference in determining a potential team podium finish.
"I believe we have the strongest fifth, sixth and seventh runners in U SPORTS and because of the great extent that can determine the team's outcome, if we're doing a really good job with our fourth and fifth scorers and if our sixth and seventh are displacing people, we're probably going to be pretty far up there in terms of the team results," said Weiler. "That's one of our goals, to showcase that we are the deepest women's cross country team in U SPORTS. Whether we're first or fourth overall, that's sort of an additional goal that's nice to hang your hat on."
A relatively inexperienced UBC men's team has continually impressed with performances from second years
Steven Brittain and
Kai Martland in particular.
Fifth-year
Dylan Uhrich returned from injury to perform well at the Canada West meet and along with Filion, they'll once again be counted on to help their younger teammates both during the race, and in the lead up.
"What an incredible success story up to this point Max has been. He was a walk on at UBC two years ago and now he's in his third year and clearly one of the top guys in U SPORTS right now. What an incredible progression in just over two years. He's an incredible athlete, an incredible person, he puts the work in and has a fantastic attitude toward it and when you combine that with his talent, he's getting incredible results."
In addition to the opportunity to compete for U SPORTS medals and All-Canadian status, Saturday's eight kilometre races will also be used to help determine team Canada representatives for the upcoming FISU World Championships in March.
The 2025 U SPORTS Cross Country Championships begin with the women's race at 1:00 p.m. ET/10:00 a.m. PT followed by the men's race just over an hour later.
Live streaming of the championships will be available on
CBC Gem, c
bcsports.ca and
CBC Sports' YouTube channel.
Â
