VANCOUVER – Little over three months after celebrating another tremendous NAIA Outdoor Track and Field season, including a fifth straight women's championship victory, the UBC Thunderbirds Track & Field and Cross Country teams are hard at work back on campus.
The Canada West Cross Country season is upon us, and while many familiar faces will be competing come the end of the month, they'll also be joined by an extremely talented 2026 recruit class, with several more already training with their track and/or field event colleagues ahead of NAIA competition in the spring.
This year's recruit class may be slightly smaller in terms of numbers, but it's certainly not short on talent.
"We need to be mindful of the new landscape we're finding ourselves in and with the NCAA moving to five years of eligibility," said UBC head coach,
Laurier Primeau, now into his 12
th season with the blue and gold. "The NAIA is currently tackling this topic and if we move to five years of eligibility, we need to understand there are likely a good number of seniors that are going to want to remain on our roster. So, ensuring we have spots to accommodate that while still bringing in healthy recruiting classes is a difficult balance."
The 2025 cross country season saw another top three Canada West finish for both the men's and women's teams while the UBC women also took home bronze at the U SPORTS National Championship.
At the 2026 NAIA Outdoor Track and Field National Championships in Asheville, North Carolina, the T-Bird women not only dominated once again, a very young men's side claimed fifth. There's plenty to build on with both teams for the year ahead, the depth being added in addition to experience boding very well.
"Particularly on the men's side, if you look at (the 2025 NAIA Championship) where we scored 21 points in men's javelin vs two points in 2026, we actually didn't graduate any javelin throwers, we simply had to red shirt a number of them, some for academic reasons and some for health reasons," said Primeau. "We anticipate enhancing that group having graduated one but adding a national finalist in Carson Gauthier to that mix. Couple that with some endurance athletes coming to supplement and additional power-speed athletes that are in a position to come in and score right away."
"The women's team continues to be strong and I think we've done a really good job starting with two young women on the endurance side that will have to fill some pretty big shoes with
Elysse Fleming and
Mackenzie Campbell having graduated. But, I think there's good potential there and I think the key word is patience."
The Thunderbirds continue to boast an extremely deep roster of endurance athletes in both genders, but particularly over the last five years or so, UBC has continued to add roster depth at a variety of specializations be it vaults, throws, sprints, hurdles, or horizontal jumps.
"I think this is a well-rounded group. We have some really good throwers coming in, including Matilda Farrar from the U.K. Some of the new endurance athletes have been part of the club system and have had such accelerated progress that they're ready to step into varsity roles. The nice thing about that pathway is we're getting athletes who have third and fourth year of maturity, but first and second year eligibility."
"With our women's endurance group, we're really excited about Kefira Kamara who also comes to us through the local track club. Kieva Burmingham comes from Ontario and I think is going to be a real nice addition to our women's cross country team."
"On the men's side, Kouken Narbett, from Richmond, had a really good breakout grade 12 year. On the power-speed side, Chase Longley was the silver medallist at the B.C. High School Championships in the hammer throw and Darius Edwards was an Ontario high school medallist and a national medallist in each of the two hurdle races, both 110 and 400 metres, respectively. They're going to be really nice additions on the power-speed end of things."
The 2026 UBC Cross Country squad will see their first competition before the month is out with the Vancouver Spirit Run taking place Sunday, September 27.
Aside from the conference and national championship meets later in the autumn, a major highlight of the season will be UBC's own Farm Fest meet, set for October 10.
2026-27 T-Bird Men's Recruit Class
Darius Edwards – Sprints/Hurdles (Cambridge, Ont. – Arts)
Carson Gauthier – Javelin (Niagara Falls, Ont. – Applied Science)
Hansen Hsu – Race Walk (Burnaby, B.C. – Sauder School of Business)
Chase Longley – Hammer Throw (Langley, B.C. – Arts)
Kouken Narbett – Endurance (Richmond, B.C. – Applied Science)
Randy Ren – Endurance (Calgary, Alta. – Applied Science)
Ryerson Stockton-Thomas – Endurance (Vancouver, B.C. – Science)
2026-27 T-Bird Women's Recruit Class
Sena Asom – Jumps (Dallas, Texas – Arts)
Treah Bennett – Pole Vault (Richmond, B.C. – Kinesiology)
Kieva Birmingham – Endurance (Toronto, Ont. – Applied Science)
Roisin Burke – Jumps (Calgary, Alta. – Applied Science)
Matilda Farrar – Discus (Godalming, England – Arts)
Kefira Kamara – Endurance (Vancouver, B.C. – Arts)
Abigail Kinch – Endurance (Thornhill, Ont. – Science)
Kate Tennant – Endurance (Edmonton, Alta. – Kinesiology)
Maile Wesner – Hurdles (Comox Valley, B.C. – Arts)
Sarah White – Endurance (Toronto, Ont. – Masters, Applied Science)
Mia Zurkovic – Endurance (West Vancouver, B.C. – Master of Architecture)
