CALGARY –
Maximilien Filion is the 2026 Canada West Men's Cross Country individual champion as the fourth-year Thunderbird led the team to a second consecutive conference bronze medal with the UBC women's team earning silver for the third straight year.
Mia Zurkovic earned first team Canada West All-Star status with a fifth place finish, the first T-Bird woman to cross the finish line, while both teams claimed a spot on the podium for an eighth consecutive season since returning to the conference in 2018.
"Today was a great step forward with excellent race execution by both the men and women. It's been a long time coming and well worth the wait," said UBC lead endurance coach,
Steve Weiler. "Beyond just the results, how they executed today was very, very good. They bought in, they executed really well and that's what you're seeing in the results."
All told, 11 different T-Birds were named All-Stars or All-Rookies with
Randy Ren earning Men's Rookie of the Year as the fastest freshmen, completing the eight kilometre course in a time of 27:21, 16
th overall.
"Our depth shone through today," said UBC head coach,
Laurier Primeau. "Patience in the first half of both races paid off in the second half for us as we rolled through the fields. Trusting that process is a very difficult thing to do but I think we learned a valuable lesson about race strategy that will pay off if we can execute the same way at U SPORTS in two weeks."
A year after claiming conference silver, Filion was superb on the day as he has been all season thus far. Clocking in at 25:52, the Candiac, Quebec native was eight seconds ahead of the rest of the pack and was officially named conference Men's Athlete of the Year.
With a total of 39 points, perhaps the most impressive part of the UBC women's silver medal performance was how tightly bunched their five counting competitors were. Zurkovic's fifth-place time of 31:04 was just 11 seconds ahead of
Katelyn Cotterell who claimed 11
th.
Fifth-year
Sarah MacGillivray was just one second behind Zurkovic for sixth place to also claim first team All-Star status.
Grace Beach and
Clare Goodison finished eighth and ninth, respectively, while joining Cotterell and
Rachel McDonald (13
th place) on the second All-Star team.
The 'Birds were just four total points behind the gold medal winning Victoria Vikes squad.
"We wanted to stay together and pull as many of us through together because that would influence the team score," said Zurkovic of the women's strategy going in. "I kept looking around during the race and just seeing a lot of blue was really reassuring. We're a deep team right now and we pulled so many of us into the top 14. I think we executed pretty smartly, it was a pretty calm and smart race at least from my perspective, and that's what we wanted going in."
With 66 team points, the UBC men were just three behind the silver medal winning Regina Cougars. All five of the T-Birds counting toward the team total finished in the top 20 with the gold medal winning Victoria Vikes the only other squad managing to do so.
Second-year
James Doughty earned second team All-Star with a 12
th place overall finishing time of 27:01.
Ryerson Stockton-Thomas and
Calvin Brain finished 18
th and 19
th, respectively, both crossing the line in 27:24 to round out a solid block of T-Bird blue behind Filion's blistering winning time.
"Max has worked very, very hard since walking onto our team several years ago and we're incredibly proud of him for the win today," said Weiler.
"A lot of the boys had great races today and we improved on our overall team score from last year," Doughty added following the race. "We were really close to Regina and it's going to be a good battle going into U SPORTS."
Given Saturday's results, the 'Birds feel they are in prime position to deliver even more come the U SPORTS National Championships which go down on Saturday, November 14 in Hamilton, Ontario.
"Going in, it's nice to be in second position just so we have someone to hunt for, it gives us some motivation," Zurkovic said. "We raced really smart today and we still have more to give. I think we're in a good place to attack going into U SPORTS. Our spirits are really high looking forward."
CANADA WEST CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS
2026 Canada West Award Winners
Men's Team Coach of the Year: Hilary Stellingwerff, Victoria
Women's Team Coach of the Year: Hilary Stellingwerff, Victoria
Rookie of the Year, Male Competition:
Randy Ren, UBC
Rookie of the Year, Female Competition: Hailie Robertson, Victoria
Student-Athlete Community Service Award, Male Competition: Brett MacLean, Regina
Student-Athlete Community Service Award, Female Competition: Amaia Ervin-Arambarri, Calgary
Athlete of the Year, Male Competition:
Maximilien Filion, UBC
Athlete of the Year, Female Competition: Madelyn Eybergen, Victoria
Men's Champion (P.S. Warren Trophy): Victoria Vikes
Women's Champion (Harold Wright Trophy): Victoria Vikes
2026 Canada West All-Stars
Men's First Team
- Maximilien Filion, UBC
- Ian Teichler, Regina
- Daniel Damian, Victoria
- Tyler Browne, Victoria
- Jaxon Kuchar, Victoria
- Brett MacLean, Regina
- Ethan Meyer, Calgary
Men's Second Team
- Luc Fillion, Manitoba
- Alec Teichler, Regina
- Max Cook, Calgary
- Carson Kroeker, Manitoba
- James Doughty, UBC
- Jacob Webster, Victoria
- Nico Stockwell, Victoria
Women's First Team
- Madelyn Eybergen, Victoria
- Marisha Thompson, Victoria
- Abigail Yakemchuk, UBC Okanagan
- Elissa Frielink, Victoria
- Mia Zurkovic, UBC
- Sarah MacGillivray, UBC
- Natalie Boston, Alberta
Women's Second Team
2026 Canada West All-Rookie Team
Men's
Women's
- Hailie Robertson, Victoria
- Jaida LaFleur, Regina
- Sofia Ouellet, Regina
- Kieva Birmingham, UBC
- Sophie Shaffer, Alberta
