For a lot of local athletes, 2024 was an amazing year they will never forget, starting with the members of the 2023-2024 Navan Grads which won the first Central Canada Hockey League Junior A championship in franchise history. In fact, it was the first time the team had made it past the semi-finals.

But the Navan Grads weren’t the only team that reached the pinnacle of success in 2024. The boys’ hockey teams from Collège catholique Mer-Bleue and École secondaire publique Louis Riel both won their respective divisions at the francophone provincial high school championships in April.

Les Loups de Mer-Bleue won the AAA championship and the Louis-Riel Rebelles won the Quad-A title.

Elsewhere, the St. Peter Knights varsity girls rugby team won the 2023-2024 Tier 1 city high school championship and the U14 Cumberland Panthers football team won the Ontario Summer Football League title.

The Cumberland Panthers Football Club’s success carried into the fall season when the U12, U14 and U16 teams were a perfect 3-0 in the National Capital Amateur Football Association A-Cup championships.

Last but by no means least, the Louis-Riel had one of the most successful weeks any east end school has had in recent memory in November when they won three high school titles in three different sports over four days, including the senior boy’s AA volleyball championship, the senior girls AA basketball championship and the junior boys Tier 1 soccer title.

Two of the top individual athletic performances of the year were delivered less than 24 hours apart at the National Capital high school track and field championships in June by Zachary Jeggo from École secondaire Louis-Riel and Tansei Tan from École secondaire catholique Béatrice-Desloges.

Both young men smashed records that have stood for over 25 years.

Tan set a new meet record in the junior boys 300-metre hurdles that had been held for the past 28 years by former St. Matthew High School student Matt Stenson. He also set a meet record in the 100-metre hurdles.

Jeggo, meanwhile, set a new meet record in the senior boys 400-metre hurdles that had been held for 38 years by Philip Hughes from Earl of March, and he bettered it by nearly half of second.

What’s even more impressive is that Jeggo was competing in his first year at the senior level which includes athletes in both Grade 11 and Grade 12. Hughes was in Grade 13, which was still in place back then, when he set his mark, meaning he was two years older than Jeggo.

The Louis-Riel runner then went on to win double gold in the senior boys 400-metres
and 400-metre hurdles at the OFSAA provincial championships later that same month and a gold medal in the U18, 400-metre hurdles at the National Youth Championships in July. He also won both a silver and bronze medal at the Canadian U20 championships in late June competing as a 17-year-old.

In other sports, Navan skip Dominique Vivier lead her team to the U18 provincial curling championship, 13-year-old Samantha Couture won a silver medal competing on beam at an international gymnastics event in Germany, and golfer Isaiah Ibit, 17, continued to shine on the links, winning two tournaments including the Ontario Junior Boys Spring Classic.