MIRAMAR, Fla. – University of Calgary Dinos sprinter Sam Effah continued his meteoric rise up the world rankings Friday, winning the gold medal in the 100 metres at the North America, Central America, and Caribbean (NACAC) under-23 championships in Miramar, Fla. with a blistering time of 10.06.

The time cut 16 hundredths off his previous personal best of 10.22 set last month in Edmonton, and it put him among the top 25 times run in the world so far in 2010.

Full NACAC results: http://halfmiletiming.com/Datafiles/Spring2010/NACAC10/Results/

Effah's 10.06 is the fastest time posted by a Canadian in the 100 since Nicolas Macrozonaris stopped the clock in 10.03 in Mexico on May 3, 2003. It also places him in very select company in the world of Canadian sprinting, joining the likes of Harry Jerome, Donovan Bailey, and Bruny Surin along with Macrozonaris in running times below 10.1 seconds.

“It's pretty exciting,” Effah said Friday night from Florida. “I ran a [personal best] two weeks ago to qualify for the Commonwealth Games, but to run that today was pretty big for me. With the competition here, guys from Trinidad and Jamaica, I knew that it would be tough, but the conditions were perfect.

“I didn't really approach this one any differently, but I think it was the combination of the competition and the conditions tonight.”

“Sam has really been looking good lately, and since we arrived here on Wednesday he has been ready,” said Brenda Van Tighem, Effah's coach. “We had perfect conditions for the final tonight, a beautiful evening. In the warm-up you could see he was ready to go, his nervous system was firing, and he just shot out of the blocks. It was so good to see all our planning and training come together tonight.”

After posting the best semi-final time of the day in 10.35, Effah beat out Jamaica's Oshane Bailey by five hundredths in the evening final to finish atop the podium. Maurice Mitchell of the USA took bronze in a time of 10.14.

A 21-year-old graduate of Sir Winston Churchill High School, Effah has been ranked number one in Canada after his 10.22 performance in Edmonton which qualified him for the Commonwealth Games this October in Dehli, India. He is the three-time defending Canadian Interuniversity Sport track athlete of the year and set a CIS record in the 60 metres at the national championships in Windsor last March with a time of 6.57.

According to Van Tighem, that time kick-started what has been an impressive summer so far.

“Sam has just been knocking down time after time throughout his career,” she said. “His CIS time in the 60 equates to about a 10.1 in the 100, so we knew he was capable of running a time like this. It just reinforces everything we've been doing to this point.”

A high school football player who didn't get serious about sprinting until beginning his studies at the University of Calgary in 2006, Effah has been identified by Athletics Canada as a hopeful for the 2012 Olympics in London in both the 100 and 200 along with the 4x100-metre relay – and his candidacy should only become stronger after Friday's performance.

“There will probably be some more meets available to me now,” Effah said. “I'll go to a national team training camp in Zurich in August, and with a time like this under my belt I have some extra confidence heading into the Commonwealth Games in India in October.”

Effah will also run the 200 on Sunday afternoon at the Miramar Ansin Sports Complex before beginning preparations for the 2010 Canadian championships July 28-31 at the University of Toronto. He enters his fifth and final year of CIS eligibility with the Dinos this fall.

-UC-