CALGARY – After having a four-year Canada West championship streak broken last February by the Saskatchewan Huskies, the University of Calgary Dinos women's track team will be looking to rebound while the men are aiming to break through at the Canada West championships in Edmonton this weekend.

The women's team, which lost by eight points in the final Canada West team standings in 2009 and finished fifth at the CIS meet, will be up against strong competition yet again from Huskies who are poised to defend their title. The Regina Cougars, who finished in second last season, and the Alberta Pandas are set to challenge the Canada West field as well.

Calgary does boast some strong individual talent in the track division that could very easily find themselves on the podium upon the weekend's completion.

Most notably, Amonn Nelson will be competing for Athlete of the Year consideration, racing in the 60 and 300m individual events as well as the 4x200m and 4x400m relays. Nelson took gold in both the 300m and the 4x200 events at the Canada West championships last season, and added silver in the 60m and 4x400.

Nelson was a part of the 4x400m relay team that won Canada's first track and field gold medal since 1982 at the 2009 Summer Universiade in Belgrade, Serbia, and also competed at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

Kelsey Lotwin, Jenn Zimmer, and Danielle Kendall have all posted very good times in the 300m event behind Nelson, while Riley McQueen (1000m) has had solid results as well. Jaime Waine (shot put and weight throw) remains Calgary's best hope in the field events.

In only his third year competing for the Dinos men's squad, Sam Effah is undoubtedly the driving force behind Calgary's success on the track. Last year's CIS and Canada West Male Track Athlete of the Year is the defending CIS 60m gold medallist as well as defending Canada West 60m and 300m gold medallist.

Effah, who is expected to post similar results this weekend in both the 60 and 300m events, will run in the 4x200 relay as well. Effah ran at both the 2009 Universiade as well as the 2009 World Championships.

Despite being somewhat overshadowed by Effah, Mike Saizew remains another of the Dinos' medal hopefuls as well as a major factor for the overall team standings. Saizew is currently ranked first in the 600m event, where he won CIS bronze in 2009, and will lead the 4x400m and 4x800m relays.

Scott Nicol (1000m, 1500mm 4x800m) leads Calgary in the distance events, while Todd Rigaux could surprise in the triple jump.

Calgary will have a good shot at team success this weekend, but they look up at Saskatchewan and Regina, who sit ahead of them in the CIS rankings.

Head Coach Doug Lamont is optimistic heading into Edmonton this weekend.

“We are always going for championships, and we feel we can be successful on any given day,” said Lamont. “We have some experienced runners who have been there before, and if they do what got them here, it will only help us as a team.”

“The big challenge at events like these is using your personnel as best as possible to put the team in a good position,” he continued. “We feel we've done that, and we're looking forward to the weekend.”

-UC-