Soon to be Gee-Gee Ashlea Maddex (St. Pascal Baylon, Ont.) and current uOttawa track star Oluwasegun Makinde (Ottawa, Ont.) represented Canada proudly at the World Junior National Championships in Moncton from July 19 to July 25.

Maddex had an outstanding performance in the women’s 100m hurdles, recording a personal best and finishing fourth in her preliminary heat with a time of 13.82s.

“It was really exciting,” said Maddex. “It was a weird feeling. I’ve never been so focused during warm-ups. I was confident and just followed my routine. Then my mind blanked out and it was time to race.”

“I was in the same heat as some of the fastest competitors, so I knew it was going to be a really fast race,” Maddex added. The top two finishers in her heat went on to win the gold and silver medals in the finals.

The St. Pascal Baylon native missed qualifying for semi-finals by a mere 0.01s. “I thought I was going to make it, so it was a bit disappointing. But I recorded a personal best and walked away with a new mentality on the race, so I was happy.”

In the 400m hurdles, Maddex once again placed fourth in her heat, clocking in at 1:00.41, but did not advance to the finals.

Maddex described the whole experience as a real wake-up call, especially “having the media attack you after your race.” Her next big competition will be the Ontario Summer Games/Espoir Championships in Sudbury, Ont., from August 12 to 13, 2010.   

Ottawa native Oluwasegun Makinde was also very successful at the World Junior Championships, qualifying for the semi-finals in both of his events.

In the men’s 200m dash preliminaries, Makinde finished third in his heat with a time of 21.43s to qualify for the semi-finals later that day. He went on to shave 0.3s off his qualifying time (21.13s) and finish fourth in his heat, but did not qualify for the finals.

In the 110m hurdles preliminaries, Makinde matched his personal best time of 13.92s to finish second in his heat. He ran his semi-final race in 14.05 seconds, but unfortunately it was not enough to advance to the finals.

“It wasn’t as technically smooth as I wanted it to be,” Makinde told Athletics Canada after his semi-final race. Nonetheless, he said it was a “great experience to learn how to run under pressure.”

Both Maddex and Makinde, along with approximately 15 other Gee-Gees, will be busy this weekend assisting with the Legion Canadian Youth Track and Field Championships taking place at the Terry Fox Athletic Facility at Mooney’s Bay Park in Ottawa from Friday, August 6 until Sunday, August 8.

Gee-Gees track and field head coach Andy McInnis is the meet director for this nationally sanctioned event (by Athletics Canada), which will be host to over 1000 athletes from across Canada, including 400 athletes will be housed at the University of Ottawa.

For more information on the meet and for results, visit: http://www.athletics.ca/legions2010/main.asp?id=513