Canadian Operating and Underneath Armour have teamed up for the 2024 Canadian U Sports activities cross-country season to focus on among the high homegrown abilities throughout the nation. Every week, main as much as the 2024 U Sports activities Cross-Nation Championships in Kelowna, B.C., in November, Canadian Operating will choose the highest athlete because the Underneath Armour Athlete of the Week.
The award will go to a U Sports activities cross-country athlete who achieved a standout efficiency at their meet. These athletes will probably be featured on Canadian Operating and awarded an Underneath Armour prize pack that includes the brand new UA Infinite Professional Path shoe. This week we’re overlaying the primary two weeks of the season, and highlighting two sensational athletes: Jacob Benoit of Dalhousie College and Madelyn Eybergen of the College of Windsor, for his or her performances between Sept. 7 and Sept. 21.
Jacob Benoit, Dalhousie College (AUS)
After taking first place on the STFX Invitational in Antigonish, N.S., on Saturday, Dalhousie’s Jacob Benoit has to this point gone undefeated within the 2024 cross-country season. He accomplished the lads’s 8K course in 25:04, profitable over second place by greater than 50 seconds. He additionally gained the Acadia Invitational in Greenwich, N.S., on Sept. 7, clocking 26:54.
The Windsor, N.S., native is in his second 12 months finishing his MBA. “I’m pleased with how the race went,” he advised Canadian Operating. “I did my undergrad at St. Francis Xavier College, so I’m fairly accustomed to that course. I attempted to get out quick for the primary couple of laps, after which ease in a bit extra with about 4 km to go.”
Final 12 months, Benoit gained the AUS convention title for the primary time, however on the 2023 U Sports activities Championships in London, Ont., he missed the rostrum by a single spot. “This 12 months, I’m aiming to get particular person and group wins on the AUS degree, and enhance my efficiency in Kelowna for a podium spot on the U Sports activities Championships in Kelowna,” he reveals.
2024 males’s U Sports activities cross nation pre-season energy rankings
Madelyn Eybergen, College of Windsor (OUA)
At Saturday’s Vigars & Salter Western Invitational in London, Ont., College of Windsor’s Madelyn Eybergen gained the ladies’s 8K race. She dominated final 12 months’s U Sports activities championship course, clocking 29:50 to beat second place by 10 seconds–in her first-ever cross-country race.
Saying Eybergen has had an unconventional introduction to cross-country may be an understatement. The graduate scholar, solely in her second 12 months of U Sports activities eligibility, was initially recruited to the Lancers monitor and subject group for the 2020-21 college 12 months–however not as an endurance athlete. The Kincardine, Ont., native comes from a high-jump background, and wrote on Instagram that she hadn’t taken half in a cross-country race since Grade 9.
“I really feel nice about my race,” Eybergen advised Canadian Operating. “I used to be not anticipating to win, contemplating it was my first cross-country race. I discovered after the truth that the ladies I beat had been high athletes for OUAs and U Sports activities [in 2023].” Eybergen’s efficiency marks the primary time a Lancer has gained that race in additional than 30 years.
After coping with accidents throughout her main years at UWindsor, Eybergen says she constructed her energy again as much as return to competing. “I raced the mile for enjoyable on the first competitors of the 2024 indoor season,” she says. The previous excessive jumper explains that she continued to compete for each mid-distance and excessive bounce for the rest of the indoor season earlier than transitioning utterly to mid- and long-distance occasions over the summer season.
“Initially of the season, my aim was to coach as greatest as I may and see how properly I may do,” Eybergen admits. “Now, after the race this previous weekend, my aim is to make it to U Sports activities and shoot for a medal.”
2024 ladies’s U Sports activities cross nation pre-season energy rankings