News

July 1, 2006 - Memorial Leon Buyle, Oordegem, Belgium

Nearly perfect weather conditions greeted the athletes on Saturday night in Oordegem, Belgium, as Hilary joined a bunch of Canadian athletes on Canada Day for the Memorial Leon Buyle Flanders Cup.

This meet is the site of Hilary’s PB over 800m, where she clocked a 2:02.55 to place second last year—so expectations were high. Obviously the meet had high expectations too, as they loaded up the fast section of the women’s 800m with 16 women. Included in the field was Canadian Malindi Elmore and also Hilary’s Dutch club teammate Lotte Visschers from the Netherlands.

The pace setter did a great job for the first 400m, as Hilary settled in at third place as they split through 200m in 28.5 and 400m in approximately 59 seconds. Hilary then took over the lead, and made a strong push down the backstretch.

She had a bit of a rough patch and faded from 150m to 50m to go, but then regrouped well to pass a few more to the line. She had a strong race and finished 5th overall in her second best time ever over 800m in 2:04.03, just a scant 3 hundredths of second in front of Lotte Visschers.

“Overall, I am content with the race, and I was happy how I re-grouped in the last 50m to pass back a few athletes that had originally gotten by me. I’m just looking forward to more races during July to get race sharp. Up next is either a 1500m or 3000m at the IAAF permit meeting in Luzern, Switzerland on July 6th.”

For full results see the meet website here...

Women's 800 Results:
1 224 Ross Joanna 00 GBR 2:01.84
2 309 Goldfub Janina 83 GER 2:03.33
3 310 Werner Kerstin 82 GER 2:03.37
4 225 Green Nikeye 00 USA 2:03.42
5 311 Stellingwerff Hilary 81 CAN 2:04.03
6 268 Visschers Lotte 79 NED 2:04.07
7 227 Van Den Hurk Anne 80 NED 2:04.51
8 336 Hartmann Jana 81 GER 2:04.66
9 220 Elmore Malindi 80 CAN 2:04.68
10 226 Brathwaite Liz 85 GBR 2:04.88