City squash player killed in Toronto cycling accident
Former U of O student was struck by car while crossing road, police say
An aspiring squash pro and former Canadian university champion from Ottawa died Wednesday after the bicycle he was riding was struck by a car in North York.
Adrian Dudzicki, who would have turned 24 on Dec. 26, was on his way to the National Squash Academy when the accident occurred.
“He took some time off in the summer to sort of work more, but he was training more intensely in the fall to get ready for the new season,” Squash Canada executive director Danny DaCosta said Wednesday night.
Born at Latina, Italy, Dudzicki grew up in the Ottawa area. After attending the University of Ottawa, where he was Canadian champion in 2010, he moved to the Toronto area so he could train at the national academy.
Samantha Cornett of Dunrobin was among his training partners there.
Dudzicki was most recently 269th in the Professional Squash Association world rankings.
He returned to Ottawa two weeks ago to play in the GoodLife Open, a PSA tournament, and spent time that weekend with family members who still live in the National Capital Region.
Tournament director Heather Wallace said it was the fifth consecutive year that Dudzicki had received a wild-card entry into the 16man main draw.
He lost in the first round each time, but gave England’s Chris Truswell a good scare before falling 11-7, 8-11, 9-11, 13-11, 11-0 in 2009.
Top-seeded Martin Knight of New Zealand, the eventual champion, defeated Dudzicki 11-6, 11-5, 11-8 in his opening match this year.
Dudzicki’s father, Jarek, declined to comment on his son’s death except to say that funeral arrangements had not yet been completed.
A Toronto news website report quoted an officer from the police traffic services division as saying Dudzicki was on his bicycle and had the right of way as he was crossing Sheppard Avenue when he was struck by a BMW driven by a 20-year-old man.
The officer also said alcohol was not involved in the collision. The driver was arrested and was to face charges.
Dudzicki’s world ranking was as high as No. 136 in March 2012.
That year, he was also ranked ninth in Canada in men’s open singles, and he represented Canada in the squash competition of the 2010 World Universiade games at Melbourne.
“The entire Canadian squash community is totally numb, and it will take considerable time to recover from the effects of this tragedy,” president Lolly Gillen of Toronto said in a Squash Canada media release.
Another aspiring squash player, 23-year-old Gaetane Hitchins, was killed in a bike-automobile collision this past week in her native Belgium, a PSA official told Wallace in an email.