The 2022 Canadian Cross-Country Championships (ACXC22) are taking place this Saturday, November 26 at Mooney’s Bay in Ottawa.
For all details related to ACXC22 (from parking options and shuttle bus schedules to AC merch options and bib pick up dates) visit our ACXC22 Event Page. You can also consult the athlete start list here, and find the live webcast on athleticscanada.tv here.
The men’s open 10k will be hotly contested between a band of London Western Teammates, two BC Olympians, and a few fresh faces barely removed from U SPORTS. Defending champion John Gay is the only 2021 podium finisher lining up for this year’s race, but the 26-year-old is coming off a busy summer of international competition, and will be challenged by a series of cross-country veterans. The team’s race, meanwhile, appears to have an early favourite in London Western.
Here are the top individual and team contenders for this year’s national titles.
INDIVIDUAL RACE
Connor Black – London Western TFC
The bronze medalist at the 2019 Canadian Cross-Country Championship comes to the start line after spending the summer focusing on his 1,500m speed. Black, a Forest, Ontario native, will hope to improve on his tenth place finish in 2021, and his second place finish at the Hamilton Road2Hope 5k in 13:56 shows he is ready to challenge anybody in the field.
Luc Bruchet – Mile 2 Marathon
Bruchet comes to Mooney’s Bay with the most impressive resume: he is a two-time Olympian, and has not finished lower than fourth at an ACXC championship since 2014. He is also the only athlete in the field with two previous individual titles. Last year, however, Gay got the best of the 31-year-old schoolteacher, who is likely looking for redemption.
Jeremy Coughler – London Western TFC
The 27-year-old chiropractor has enjoyed a step on his London Western teammates so far this fall. First, he beat his teammates Black and Mike Tate, as well as the rest of the field at the Hamilton Road2Hope 5k in a time of 13:55 earlier this month, and then took gold at the Athletics Ontario cross-country championship a week later. After falling to 20th at last year’s championship, Coughler comes into this year’s race with a new 5,000m PB of 13:37.69.
John Gay – Vancouver Thunderbirds
Last year’s champion rode his ACXC momentum well into the summer and represented Canada at the World Athletics Championships and the Commonwealth Games, where he finished fourth in the 5,000m. Since winning last year’s race, Gay, also a 2021 Olympian, re-wrote his 3,000m and 5,000m personal bests to 7:45.34 and 13:29.82.
Mike Tate – London Western TFC
The London Western athlete hailing from Nova Scotia will look to find his pre-pandemic mojo, which landed him atop the podium at the 2019 Canadian Cross-Country Championships. Tate, a 27-year-old cross-country specialist and former Southern Utah Thunderbird in the NCAA, has dealt with injury for parts of this year. An eighth-place finish in 14:25 at the Hamilton Road2Hope 5k puts him a few beats behind his teammates, but one knows to never count him out on the cross-country course.
Max Turek – Harbour Track Club
The university senior led MacMaster University to its first U SPORTS title since 1963 by winning individual gold in Halifax earlier this month. Turek was also the Ontario University Athletics conference champ, and has emerged as one of Canada’s top young cross-country athletes, albeit over 8k.
Mitchell Ubene - Royal City Athletics
A former U SPORTS champion and likely Royal City’s lowest stick, the 24-year-old Ubene transcended varsity athletics and proved himself an elite senior athlete last summer by finishing third at the Bell Canadian Track and Field Championship 5,000m final in a time of 13:36.71. A past runner-up at the U20 ACXC championship, Ubene is no stranger to chasing ACXC podiums.
TEAM RACE
This year’s race is London Western TFC’s to lose. Black, Coughler and Tate, along with interchangeable teammates Phil Parrot-Migas and Jack Sheffar, represent the most complete Top Four on paper. But, they were also favourites last year, and fell to third behind le Club d’Athlétisme Université Laval (CAUL) and the eventual champions, the Vancouver Thunderbirds. Again this year, do not expect the T-birds’s four-man squad of Gay, Tyler Dozzi, Thomas Nobbs and Thomas Broatch to bow down to anybody, while CAUL will be in tight without their superstar athlete and last year’s runner-up Charles Philibert-Thiboutot.
