Romaniw off to Rio after strong race at trials

Anthony Romaniw is off to the Rio Olympics.

The St. Thomas More graduate finished second in the 800 metres at the Canadian Track and Field Championships and Olympic trials in Edmonton over the weekend, and was named to Canada’s team for Rio on Monday afternoon.

The 24-year-old, who was 15th over 800 m at last summer’s Pan Am Games in Toronto, attended university at both Dartmouth and the University of Guelph. He was one of seven members — including marathoner Reid Coolsaet of Hamilton — of the Speed River Track and Field Club to be named to Canada’s Olympic team.

Romaniw was seventh at the 2013 World Universiade and 34th at the world championships the same year.

Robert Heppenstall, another St. Thomas More grad, finished third in the 800 m at Edmonton but did not qualify for the Games. The four-time OFSAA gold medallist won a silver medal at last year’s junior Pan Am Games. Heppenstall,

19, has just finished his freshman year at Wake Forest. Jeff Tweedle of McMaster was 13th in the 800 m.

One of the big stories of the trials was the 200 m run in 19.96 seconds by winner Brendon Rodney. It was just the second time a Canadian had gone under 20 seconds.

Rodney runs under the banner of the Hamilton Elite Athletic Team, the Burlington-based club he joined three years ago, and coach George Kerr, but grew up in Brampton. He attends Long Island University and lives in the New York area much of the year, but when he’s back home he trains with Kerr and HEAT at MM Robinson High School in Burlington.

“He’s the prototypical athlete that you’d want to be around or coach,” Kerr said Monday after returning from Edmonton.

In other local results at the Nationals, Carise Thompson, a graduate of Dundas Highland, made the women’s 1,500 m final and finished 10th, Connor Fanning, who also attended Highland, was 12th in the sprint hurdles, and McMaster’s Blair Morgan was 12th in the 5,000 m. In the junior division of the national championships and Olympic trials, Dundas Valley’s Brittany Stenkes finished fifth in the long jump and fifth in the hurdles, and her teammate Jenna Smith was seventh in the 400 m and ninth in the 200, while Chloe Hewitt was ninth in the 800 m.

AND ELSEWHERE: Last month, Dundas Valley Secondary School Gryphons won the OFSAA senior girls championship banner, led by Brittany Stenekes and Jenna Smith. Stenekes took gold in the long jump and silver in the 100 m hurdles and was part of the Gryphons’ relay team which just missed a medal, with a fourthplace finish. Smith was the bronze medallist over 200 m. Alec Purnell of Dundas Valley won the junior boys 800 m. It was the second successive year that DVSS athletes have won four medals at the provincial high school championships ... Myles Misener-Daley of Westdale won gold medals at OFSAA in both the 100 m and 200 m dashes for midget boys and followed that up with golds in the same disciplines in the U-15 age division at the Ontario Legion championships. Purnell, running for the Hamilton Olympic Club was second in the U-17 800 metres ... Clark Schultz, 17, of Grimsby and Seth Moyer, 15, of Beamsville are among 48 rowers from across Canada at the Rowing Canada Aviron training camp in Sarasota, Florida this week in preparation for the Can Am Mex Regatta set for July 16 and 17. Both row for Ridley College ... Jordann Jones of Jerseyville won the 2016 Junior Road Nationals individual time trials and was second in the road race and is preparing for the Junior Track Worlds in Switzerland later this month. He has also qualified for the Road Worlds in October ... Blake Leeper, the blade runner who broke the U.S. 200 m and 400 m records at the McMaster Twilight Meet last month, has made the U.S. team for the Rio Paralympics.