Looking back at RMC’s inaugural Cross-Country season
By Leah Kellar, 11 SQN (ALOY)
RMC’s new running team ended its competitive season in a torrent of triumph at the Ontario University Athletics Cross Country Championships on Saturday October 25th. RMC’s top seeded runners on both men’s and women’s teams earned impressive on a challenging course.
Leah Kellar led the way for the first time this season on the women’s 5 km course, emerging out of the crowd to finish in 57th place with a time of 20:38. Only seconds behind, CJ Best, a regular first place leader among the team this season, exemplified resilience on the course while enduring a knee injury to clock in at 20.53. Fellow top runner, Eve Boyce stayed on her heels finishing at 20:59. Ashley Galvin, Dunerci Caceres, Ashley Fitzpatrick and Mary Sun worked together pushing the team to a 14th place finish out of 16 teams overall; the 10-month old team managed to beat Trent and Nipissing in its first season! In fact, the team narrowly missed beating Brock too.
The championship event was hosted by Queens University at Fort Henry Hill just northwest of the college, however, RMC held the home course advantage having trained extensively on the trail since September. Pelting rain and cold, whipping winds added an extra element of difficulty for more than 200 top university athletes who surged through the muddy, trail.
At high noon, one hour after the women started, the men’s team had the pleasure of racing four laps for a total of 10 kilometres. RMC’s John Marshall turned heads capturing first place among team members and 63rd place in the field with a competitive time of 36.45. He was followed closely by regular season leaders Nicolas St-Amant (36.53) and Mike Spears (37.13). Their fellow teammates, Jacob Trivers, Richard Hayes, Jonathan Lemieux and Patrick Wheeler kept a steady pace throughout to contribute to the team’s 13th place among Ontario’s 15 university men’s teams. Just like the girls’ team, Trent and Nipissing gave in to RMC’s newcomer’s strength.
The OUA race was just a slice of the action this inaugural season. Team members challenged themselves and each other during hours of intense practices in increasingly inclement weather climbing the Fort Henry hills and sprinting across their plateaus building mental strength and physical stamina.
A quick recap reveals how far the team has come along in such a short competitive season.
- Aug. 31, 2008: Big Gun Run 5k race. This was the team’s first race this season, an opportunity to put the runners’ summer training to the test. Nicolas St-Amant finished third overall (16:50), with five other RMC runners placing in the top 10.
- Sept. 6, 2008: RMC’s Wing Harrier 5k race was a good preparation for the upcoming season. Eve Boyce (19.18) captured top place among the women and the top male runner was Mike Spears (16.40).
- Oct. 4, 2008: Queen’s Open Invitational on Fort Henry was the team’s first OUA race since 2001. The team placed 8th out of 9 in the women’s event and 7th out of 8 in the men’s race. CJ Best placed first for the RMC women’s team with a time of 19:58 for a 5km despite a knee injury and placed 29th overall. Nicolas St-Amant placed first for RMC and 34th overall with a time of 36:09 for the 10km course. Richard Hayes placed fifth on the RMC Men’s team with a time of 37:52, only 24 hours after completing the grueling RMC First Year obstacle course.
- Oct. 18, 2008: Brock Cross-Country Open in St.-Catherine’s. Individual highlights for the two races include Eve Boyce who ran a time of 11:59 for the 3000m, finishing 4th overall for the women. On the men’s side, Mike Spears completed the 5000m in a time of 16:30, 18th overall.
The cross-country season now over, the 23-member team is gearing up to start training in either track or road running programs in preparation for a series of races starting in January and ending in March for track, and April for road.
The team would like to thank their coaches, Trevor Davies and Megan Lord who put parts of their lives on hold spending countless hours planning and strategizing for the best possible outcome, as well as all those who worked to keep moral high and believed in our success this past season.
Thanks to them and our team’s demonstrated leadership, dedication and hard work, we have ensured RMC’s continued presence next year as a team to watch out for in the OUA circuit!
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The Royal Military College Men’s Fencing Team is among the teams who are finalists in the CF Sports Award in the Team of the Year category. The Royal Military College Men’s Fencing Team, the Chief Military Personnel nominee, won RMC’s first ever Men’s Fencing Provincial University Championship, capturing the Ontario University Athletic banner in February 2007. The team received the Commandant’s Commendation and was named RMC “Team of the Year” for 2006-2007.
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Fencers cut their way to the top
The men’s and women’s varsity fencing teams, from Royal Military College, traveled to St Catherines Ontario recently for the Brock Invitational OCC Fencing tournament. The Paladins competed in six events
including men’s and women’s foil, epee and sabre against OUA schools and clubs in Ontario and NY state. The Paladin fencers were very successful bringing home a total of six individual medals, several top 8 results, and many top 16 finishes. Silver medalists included Cadet Wing Commander Jacklyn Power 24446 2nd/44 in women’s epee and PG student Sarah Rogers 24052 2nd/31 in women’s sabre. Bronze medalists included II Nicky Sapera 24679 and ex-cadet Marilyne Lafortune in women’s foil(out of 45), II Eric Castelani in men’s foil (out of 68) and II Juno Tousigant in men’s epee (out of 75). For Power, Sapera and Tousignant these medals represent individual PBs.
Top finishers also included Brendan Kilburn 5th/68 in men’s foil and 9th/75 in men’s epee, PG Rebecca Walker 6th/45 in women’s foil, III Rachel Middleton 7th/44 in women’s epee, III Nicholas Goulet 24198 7th/47 in men’s sabre, and III Diana Prenoveau 24666 8th/31 in women’s sabre.
The next competition for RMC will be Senior National Championships. Eight RMC fencers have qualified for the Senior Nationals, to be held in Calgary Alberta, Nov 27-30th 2008.
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(M) Rugby Wrap-up
The (M) rugby team wrapped up their 2008 season with two exhibitions games.
In a recent match played at RMC, The Honourable Peter MacKay – Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway – joined a number of Ex cadets and other staff members from Canadian Forces College in Toronto. From all accounts the MND handled himself very nicely on the rugby pitch giving a number of and receiving his fair share of clean tackles. The game was truly of the exhibition variety and an opportunity for current cadets to “mix it up” both on and off the field with senior military and civilian staff.
Three RMC cadets / rugby players, all from Nova Scotia, had quite a thrill when The Honourable Peter MacKay suited up for the annual RMC / CF Staff College rugby match:
Pictured are: IV Chris Flaherty, The Honourable Peter MacKay, IV Gavin Whynot, and I Peter McNeil
On 11 Nov the RMC team traveled to Ottawa to commemorate Remembrance Day. Following the formal activities in the morning, RMC took on University of Ottawa for their final game of the season. The Paladins easily won by a 27-0 score. Ottawa native III Nick Villa led the offense with two tries.
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Spreading the Red and White in the hometown of Canada’s largest beaver!
By Ocdt Stephen Paish
This past week I had the privilege of going on what is known as a “Red and White” trip. For those of you who do not know what the nature of these trips are I will explain. Red and White trips are an opportunity for RMC cadets to have a trip back to their hometown area paid for (usually hometown area, but not 100 percent of the time.) In return the cadet works at high school career fairs, wearing the scarlets and promoting RMC. Not only are these trips a good chance for the cadet to see their family, they are a good learning experience as well as happened to me during this past week which allowed me to see the depth of
I come from a very isolated community in Northern Alberta known as Beaverlodge. Growing up there was not much in the way of exposure to options other than the University of Alberta for me. Fortunately, my friend’s father was an ex cadet and introduced me to the idea of going to RMC. Obviously he had an impact as I am here today. Now until last week I thought that my case was a fluke, and that I was just lucky to have an RMC presence, which helped me along the right path, in my neighborhood. (Lets face it, Beaverlodge is cold, snowy, and 500 km Northwest of Edmonton). Not so. When I attended the Remembrance Day ceremony at Beaverlodge a Captain from Edmonton recognized the scarlets and informed me that he was an ex cadet and astonishingly enough had attended RMC as well! My thoughts of RMC’s presence being void in Northern Alberta began to diminish with this encounter.
The idea that RMC is alive and well in Northern Alberta was solidified to me when I went to work a career fair at a school in Edmonton called Vimy Ridge Academy. Although the school has lost most of its military background I was surprised to see the decorations at the entrance. As soon as you enter the school there are mannequins dressed in scarlets along with a CSL sash. Several photos of the obstacle course line the hallways as well. The kids were quite knowledgeable about RMC and some seemed keenly interested in applying. This informed trend was continued throughout Edmonton at several schools.
The trip has shown me that what I once thought was an isolated area mainly devoid of RMC influence now has a well informed, interested applicant populace. I cannot help but think that this has been made possible because of the RMC club and their support of these trips. I think as club members you should be proud that the club has a significant impact in remote areas such as Northern Alberta.