The Royal City Inferno Track and Field Festival will see Canadian Olympic hopefuls compete on Wednesday, June 16 as the Ontario High Performance Series continues. All runners, and jumpers will be competing at Alumni Stadium at the University of Guelph, while all throwers will be set up at the Toronto Track and Field Centre.

This is the third of four high performance competitions taking place in Ontario for potential Team Canada athletes, who could have the chance to represent their country at the upcoming (rescheduled) Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics Games.

In Guelph, the following events will be taking place: Men’s 100m, 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m, and high jump. On the women’s side, there will be 100m, 100m hurdles, 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m, 1500m, triple jump and pole vault.

The track & jumps event schedule can be found >> HERE <<

In Toronto, Athletics Ontario will be streaming both men’s and women’s shot put, discus and javelin.

The throws event schedule can be found >> HERE <<

Gavin Smellie of The Flying Angels Academy is one to watch in the men’s 100m due to his top 10 ranking in Canada. He is coming off of a fourth place finish at the Johnny Loaring Classic with a time of 10.37s. He is also a past Olympian, having represented Canada at the London 2012 Summer Games in the 4x100m relay.

The women’s side is extremely strong with a few exceptional athletes to highlight. The 100m will feature both Crystal Emmanuel and Marissa Papaconstantinou. Emmanuel is the top ranked runner entering Wednesday’s competition, and won this past weekend in Windsor, running 11.20s. University of Toronto Track Club’s Papaconstantinou is a T64 100m para-athlete, who holds the Canadian national record. She ran a 13.32s at Ottawa’s high performance meet, and her PB is 13.15s. Both hopefuls have experience in the Olympics, where they both were members of Canada’s Rio 2016 Summer Games team.

Canadian record holder and Ottawa Lions Track & Field Club member Melissa Bishop-Nriagu will be toeing the line in the women’s 800m in a stacked field. Her PB is 1:57.01, and is currently ranked first in the nation with her season’s best of 1:58.62 that she ran at the USATF Golden Games. Bishop-Nriagu will be hungry in Tokyo this year, as she placed fourth in Rio.

Bolton Pole Vault club member Erika Fielder is coming into Wednesday’s competition leading the field. She is the only seed with a jump over the four metre mark, and is ranked fifth in Canada with a height of 4.05m, just shy of her 4.10m PB.

Caroline Ehrhardt of London Western Track and Field Club is aspiring to be Canada’s first female Olympic triple jumper. She has had a strong season thus far, with a season best of 13.49m, and a wind-assisted jump of 13.74 (NWI) at the Chula Vista High Performance Meet Two.

Three athletes to be on the lookout for at the Toronto Track and Field Centre are Sarah Mitton, Trinity Tutti and Renee Foessel. Mitton and Tutti are members of the SISU Throws Club, and have already achieved some phenomenal personal bests in the outdoor season, in their respective disciplines. Mitton is ranked first in Canada in shot put with a PB of 18.89m. Tutti is coming off a new Canadian record in the U23 Discus category, with a new PB of 58.77m. She is ranked second in the Canadian standings, and has won back to back high performance meets, in Ottawa and Windsor. Cruisers Sports para-athlete Foessel unofficially broke her own Canadian record four times and set an unofficial World and Americas record on Saturday in the F38 Discus event with a new personal best of 35.74m.

RunnerSpace will be streaming all runners and jumpers on Athletics.CanadaTV >> HERE << and all throws will be live streamed through Athletics Ontario’s Youtube channel >> HERE <<

Live results are available >> HERE <<