Bison athletes right on track for ultimate meet By: Joshua Frey-Sam Posted: 9:37 PM CST Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024 Last Modified: 12:43 PM CST Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024 Updates

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THE prospect of competing in their own backyard when Canada’s top university athletes gather here in March was all the motivation Bisons’ track and field athletes needed when the season began.

Indeed, it created a heightened sense of urgency and focus — and it’s safe to say it’s paying early dividends.

During a monumental weekend at the WOA Winter Open in Winnipeg and Golden Bear Open in Edmonton last weekend, a trio of University of Manitoba competitors punch their ticket to the U Sports national championship, set for March 7-9 at the James Daly Fieldhouse on the Fort Garry campus.

Lara Denbow (high jump), Dawson Mann (600-metre run) and Tyler Cox-Yestrau (300m run) each hit the U Sports standard in their respective events, becoming the first Bison athletes to qualify for the national meet.

Cox-Yestrau, 21, is the top-ranked 300m runner in the Canada West conference and is second in the country, and he looked every bit the part as he ran a nation-best 33.88 seconds in Alberta.

“Everything was just kind of falling into place the way I needed it to and then I finished the race and before I even looked at the clock, I knew it was something fast,” Cox-Yestrau said, in an interview with the Free Press earlier this week. “I saw 33.88 and I was like, ‘OK, yeah, this is what we wanted.’ There was no screaming or jumping or anything like that… but I think a part of me knew that this was something I was very capable of and it was just nice to finally see it happen.”

It continued a rapid ascension for the third-year 200m-400m specialist. Cox-Yestrau helped Manitoba win national gold as the lead runner in the 4x400m relay in last year’s U Sports championship and broke a 37-year-old program record in the 200m in December.

“I’m ecstatic. I am over the moon, super excited, but I’m definitely not satisfied,” he said. “I want to be the best in the nation. There’s still so much more that I want to do and I see this as it’s great that it happened but it’s a stepping stone for something even bigger, hopefully.”

Mann also ran the fastest 600m time in the country with one minute, 17.78 seconds, becoming just the third runner in program history to go sub 1:18 in the distance. Not only did it smash the U Sports standard (1:18.35) but it broke a meet record by 1.44 seconds.

Mann’s qualification for nationals isn’t a surprise to anyone in the program, as he competed last season and narrowly missed the podium with a fourth-place finish.

This year, expectations are raised for the 22-year-old student athlete.

“The goal is always to win and I know that it’s possible this year, but there’s gonna be lots of fast guys around Canada. I mean, there’s still lots of time for people to run fast times but I’m just excited to get in that U Sports 600m final and just have a good race and try to win it this year,” Mann said.

The Bisons had 30 athletes qualify for the U Sports national championship a year ago. The program could surpass that number this year with a bit more flexibility owing to a hometown event. The Bisons will enter several alternates in events such as the relays, which would otherwise not be an option if they had to travel.

The U Sports championship will return to Winnipeg for the first time since 2019. That glorious opportunity has been hammered home by head coach Claude Berube and his staff.

“Yeah, that’s in the back of their mind — they want to perform at home,” Berube said. “Traditionally, when we’ve hosted the national championship, our teams have done fairly well so that history is there also and some of them are aware of that.”

Denbow isn’t as familiar a name in U Sports athletics but has emerged as an early national contender. The 20-year-old from Neepawa initially went south after high school to compete in high jump and triple jump at Oregon State University, but a stress fracture in the arch of her foot kept her out most of the season.

She returned to Manitoba and joined the Bisons, anticipating the injury would heal in time for the 2022-23 season. That never happened and she was forced to redshirt.

After another summer of lingering issues, Denbow opted for surgery last September. In her first meet as a Bison on Saturday at the WOA Winter Open, Denbow hit the U Sports standard with a 1.71m high jump.

“Honestly, the whole standard aside, I’m just so happy to be competing again,” Denbow said. “I really just hope that I can stay competing throughout this whole season and just keep on showing up to the Bisons because, really, I love high jump and it’s been hard to be in limbo with training then not training, and trying to get ready to compete and then not being able to compete.

“I’m just so excited to be at that point.”

Denbow has managed her load this season with an emphasis on quality over quantity in training. That means triple jump has taken a back seat for the time being and she’s used a shorter approach in the lead-up to her jumps. The shorter approach means less time to build up speed and power, making her jump even more impressive and raising expectations for the national event when she hopes to use the full approach.

“I think just being at the nationals and showing up and competing for the whole year is going to be a major win for me, but I know what I’m capable of and I want to work toward that,” Denbow said. “It’s just given me an appreciation for sport. Just being able to practice every day, it makes me so happy.”

Three meets remain on the schedule before the conference championships, hosted by the University of Alberta on Feb. 23-24. Those results will fill the remainder of the field at the national championship.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

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