Track & Field | 3/8/2025 10:40:00 PM
The York University Lions track and field team wrapped up the 2024-25 season on Saturday, the final day of the 2025 Biosteel U SPORTS Track & Field Championships in Windsor.
York's best showing came courtesy of second-year jumper Arwin Mathivathanan, who finished fourth – the third fourth-place finish by a Lion this weekend – in the men's triple jump. The Scarborough, Ont., native peaked out at a 14.95m leap on his penultimate attempt, besting his 2024 U SPORTS mark by 0.26m, and coming up just 0.07m shy of a bronze medal. Fellow jumper Williams Kalu finished seventh in the competition, with his top leap registering in at 14.39m. That mark is a new personal best, beating his previous mark – a 14.38m jump at the OUA championships – by the slimmest of margins.
On the track, the Lions also fielded a pair of relay teams on the championship's final day. After qualifying for the 4x200m finals with an eighth-place finish in Thursday's preliminary races, three of the four York runners who ran that race, Alexandra Quaidoo, Charlotte Murchison, and Hillary Ojo, were joined by alternate Christabel Okoro for Saturday's final. They matched Thursday's eighth-place finish with another one in the final.
York's other relay brigade was the men's 4x400m foursome. That group was made up of Daniel Burke, Nathanel Taffese, Matthew Richards and Alex Di Florio. The trio of Burke, Taffese and Richards were looking to improve on their fifth-place finish at the OUA championships, while Di Florio stepped in for the other member of the team that ran at OUA's in Ibrahim Moustafa. They put up a solid effort, coming home with an eighth-place finish.
Overall, the Lions men's team came away with a seventh-place finish, scoring a total of 22 team points. They were carried by the 60m hurdle silver medal from Tamarri Lindo, as well as near medal misses from Mathivathanan and Tristan Boateng in Friday's men's high jump competition. On the women's side, York placed in 17th, led by Ella Foster's fourth-place finish in pole vault on the opening day of the championships on Thursday.
The Lions will now shift their sights to 2025-26, with an eye toward continuing to grow the program after two straight solid seasons and returning to the team medal conversation next year.
