VANCOUVER – Coming off one of the most successful all around years in program history, the UBC Track & Field and Cross Country teams are set to welcome yet another championship calibre crop of recruits for the 2025-26 season.
Just four months ago, the T-Birds claimed both the men's and women's NAIA Outdoor Track & Field National Championships while the men's Cross Country team will be gunning for their fifth consecutive Canada West banner this fall, the women having won five of the last six conference titles. With the loss of several veteran leaders on the track, in the field and on the course due to graduation, this year's recruit class should go a long way to keeping the T-Birds contenders for the foreseeable future.
"Athletes are interested in UBC because we have perennially put athletes and teams on the podium," said UBC head coach,
Laurier Primeau, who enters his 11
th season with the Thunderbirds. "We're proud of that from a coaching perspective, but there are also some great things about UBC that we can't take credit for that do help us in recruiting. You can't deny our academics, our climate is among the best in the country, particularly if you're a long thrower or an endurance runner. The location of campus, surrounded by water on this peninsula, it recruits itself sometimes when we bring athletes out to see what the school's like."
A total of 11 women and 12 men are joining the T-Birds, a healthy mix of sprinters, jump and throw specialists, and endurance athletes who can compete in both Cross Country and Track and Field. While the bulk of this recruit class are indeed true freshmen, it also includes a couple of graduate students in Thomas Williams and Paul Fisher, the latter of which previously competed for the 'Birds from 2019 to 2023.
The bulk of UBC's recruit class will compete in endurance events both for track and cross country, representing more of what has given the T-Birds programs such outstanding success over the last decade.
"On the endurance side, we're really happy to have signed Andrew Corbeil out of Ontario as well as the 2024 gold, silver and bronze medallists in the BC High School steeplechase, all three of them coming here in Sam May, Miles Graham and Arata Nakanishi," said Primeau. "On the women's side, Nanaimo has been super good to us over the years and that tradition continues with Brea Gillette coming in this year."
While the 'Birds are loading up on men's steeplechase competitors, the 2025 women's recruit class is doing likewise with javelin throwers.
"Catarina Bell, Erika Burry and Makayla Grant just placed first, fourth and fifth at the national under-20 championships. We're pretty excited about those women joining our already established female javelin throwers and our men's group which last year scored 21 points in that event alone at the national championships."
"In Track and Field specifically, we are acutely aware of the events we can be successful in at National Championships. If you're a steeplechaser, for example, and you want to remain in Canada, you're either coming to UBC or Simon Fraser or Trinity Western and so I think that bodes well for us to be able to secure athletes who can navigate the barriers and also run cross country for us."
The bar has indeed been set high for both UBC Track and Field and Cross Country when it comes to success both at the conference and national championship levels. With a combined 11 national championship and 13 conference banners in the last nine years, the blue and gold perennially expect to contend and this stellar group of recruits can go a long way to extending this expectation well into the future.
2024-25 T-Birds Women's Recruit Class
Catarina Bell – Javelin (Calgary, Alta. – Arts)
Audrey Bieber – Endurance (Victoria, B.C. – Applied Science)
Erika Burry – Javelin (Courtenay, B.C. – Science)
Brea Gillette – Endurance (Nanaimo, B.C. – Sauder School of Business)
Clare Goodison – Endurance (Vancouver, B.C. – Kinesiology)
Delphine Goselin – Endurance (Vancouver, B.C. – Land & Food Systems)
Mikayla Grant – Javelin (Oshawa, Ont. – Arts)
Nunu Ishaka – Jumps (Calgary, Alta. – Applied Science)
Gwyn Katics – Sprints (San Luis Obispo, Calif. – Architecture)
Mazy McFarling – Endurance (Toronto, Ont. – Media Studies)
Alexandra Smith – Endurance (Toronto, Ont. – Applied Science)
2024-25 T-Birds Men's Recruit Class
Andrew Corbeil – Endurance (Cambridge, Ont. – Applied Science)
Will Curtain – Hammer Throw (Vancouver, B.C. – Arts)
James Doughty – Endurance (Vancouver, B.C. – Arts)
Paul Fisher – Endurance (Vancouver, B.C. – Masters, Science)
Miles Graham – Endurance (Chilliwack, B.C. – Sauder School of Business)
Max Holmes – Endurance (Burnaby, B.C. – Science)
Sam May – Endurance (Abbotsford, B.C. – Arts)
Arata Nakanishi – Endurance (Abbotsford, B.C. – Kinesiology)
Luc Primeau – Long Sprints/Hurdles (Burnaby, B.C. – Sauder School of Business)
Noah Smith – Endurance (Ottawa, Ont. – Arts)
Will Van Schagen – Hurdles (Chilliwack, B.C. – Arts)
Thomas Williams – Endurance (Edmonton, Alta. – Ph.D in Kinesiology)
