By Troy Langstaff

Dalhousie’s men’s track and field team collected their seventh-straight AUS title - and 19th in the last 20 years. This year’s team was one of the deepest and most balanced groups the AUS has seen in recent years.

“This was probably the most well-rounded team that we've had in my time at Dalhousie,” said head coach Rich Lehman. “At the conference level, there were basically no holes in our roster. We had national qualifiers across all event groups and were as dominant at the AUS championships as we've been in a long time.”

2021-22 Men's Track & Field Photo Gallery

At the REDS Invitational in February, the Tigers were led by Dan Lord who won gold in the 60m and 300m. Oluwatobi Oshikoya was another Dalhousie athlete that won two golds with victories in the high jump and triple jump. Zach James also won gold in the 600m, while Will Cox and Andre Hendricks were first in the 3000m and shot put, respectively.

A couple of weeks before the conference championships, some of the team headed to Windsor, Ontario to take part in the Windsor Team Challenge. The day was highlighted by Aidan Goslett’s first-place finish in the 1000m with a U SPORTS qualifying time of 2:25.26. This marked a new personal best and the second-best time in Dalhousie history.

Back at home, a number of Tigers participated in the ANS Open at the Canada Games Centre. Oshikoya won the triple jump, while Lukas Rudaitis and Simon Salah took home top honours in the 1000m and weight throw, respectively.

At the AUS championships, James raced to a first-place finish in the 600m again while also helping the 4x400m and 4x800m relay teams to second-place finishes.

“Zach was awesome this year,” said Lehman. “We knew he was going to run fast, but the composure he showed at [the AUS championships] in holding off a late charge from a couple UNB guys is quite rare at that young of an age.”

Hudson Grimshaw-Surette and Will Cox claimed gold in the 1000m and 3000m races, respectively, while Lord was the first to cross the line in the 300m.

Tigers athletes swept the jump events with Oshikoya once again claiming gold in the high jump and triple jump and Peter Collier winning top spot in the long jump.

The Tigers ended the weekend winning 13 of the 27 men’s events and ended with 138.5 points which was more than 40 points clear of second-place UNB.

At nationals, Dalhousie failed to record any team points but had a few athletes finish in the top 10. The men’s 4x800m relay raced to ninth while Oshikoya finished 10th in both the high jump and triple jump.

“We are of course disappointed with the end result, and we had some untimely injuries to key athletes, but we knew this would be a bit of a building year at the national level,” said Lehman.

Most the men’s gold medal winners from this season will be returning next year, giving Dalhousie a strong chance at claiming their eighth-consecutive AUS championship.

2021-22 Men's Track & Field Award Winners

Team MVP Tobi Oshikoya	Tiger of the Year Skeets Greene
Eye of the TigerAndrew Conrad

Tigers Assist Award - Kirk Jessome