Meet Results
The University of Regina's
Joely Welburn won gold in the pentathlon on Thursday as the Cougars opened up the U SPORTS Track & Field Championships at the Universiade Pavilion on the University of Alberta campus.
Welburn's final score of 4055 points breaks her own school pentathlon record that she set earlier this season. The second-year star finished first in the 60-metre hurdles and the long jump, tied for first in the high jump, and was second in the 800-metre run.
The other event was the shot put where Welburn finished seventh out of nine, but even that was a massive personal best as she had a top throw of 10.72 metres.
"My shot put is definitely my weakest event but I've been throwing a bit better in practice and was able to execute today what we've been working on," Welburn said. "I was happy with the hurdles and the jumps, and I just tried to put it all out there in the 800 at the end of the day."
By the time the final event rolled around, Welburn had built up an 88-point cushion and would have needed to be topped by well over six seconds to fall out of first place. She ended up a strong second place in that 800, finishing under three-tenths of a second behind the event winner. Welburn led for almost the entire day, the only exception being after the shot put when Saskatchewan's Nicole Ostertag briefly pulled into the lead. But Welburn took it right back after the long jump before clinching the gold in the 800.
"Joely performed like an experienced multi-eventer today in only the second pentathlon she's ever done," Cougars head coach
Wade Huber said. "She was solid all day long and was able to keep her nerve with the pressure on."
Welburn joins elite company as just the second Cougar to become a national women's pentathlon champion. Chelsea Valois, who went on to become a world champion and an Olympian in the bobsleigh after her track & field career, won the pentathlon back at the 2011 CIS Championships.
NOTES: Alyson Edwards and
Ret Brailsford were the only other U of R competitors on Day 1 ... Edwards dropped out of the pentathlon after two events to concentrate on the upcoming 60-metre hurdles and long jump events, while Brailsford fell just short of qualifying for the finals of the 600-metre dash.
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