By Jeff Gard/Today’s Northumberland
Port Hope natives Jeremy Coughler and Dominika Jamnicky ran to strong performances in Sunday’s Canadian 10K Championships in Toronto.
Both were accomplished high school athletes – Coughler at Port Hope High School and Jamnicky at the former Cobourg District Collegiate Institute West – when they competed locally a number of years ago and they continue to excel.
Coughler, a 2013 graduate of PHHS, tied for fifth in the men’s elite road race Sunday. He tied Justin Kent with a time of 29 minutes 03 seconds, though acknowledges that Kent edged him with a lean at the line to claim fourth.
“I was happy with that race,” Coughler said. “It went out really fast. Lucas Bruchet took it out fast, he’s an Olympian, so we knew it was going to go out fast. He was going for the record.”
Coughler crossed the finish line not far behind the top three, an impressive field that included winner and pro runner Ben Flanagan (28:41) followed by Tokyo 2020 Olympians, from this past June, Bruchet (28:49) and Ben Preisner (28:53).
“It was pretty windy going out so it slowed down a little bit and everybody kind of caught up by about halfway,” Coughler said. “The way back we started picking it up, dropping a bit of the other field.”
It was the first big race for Coughler since 2019 when he competed at the Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront half-marathon.
Following graduation from PHHS, he competed at Indiana University for four years while earning an undergraduate degree in exercise science and kinesiology. This year he graduated from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and is starting a practice with his wife in London.
Since moving to London in May, Coughler has been training with the Bandits Elite, a high-performance running team representing the London Western Track Club. The club had four runners place in the top-10 on Sunday.
Coughler competed in some small races this past summer and set some personal-best (PB) times. He’s enjoyed returning to competition, something that wasn’t possible often while he was completing his schooling to become a chiropractor.
“Racing was kind of in the back of my mind, but not really a priority,” Coughler said. “I’m looking forward to these races now.”
Coughler said training will now ramp up for the Canadian Cross Country Championships in Ottawa in November.
“I’ve gone back to the roots of just enjoying competing,” he said. “With the group that we have, we want to run fast, but it’s us enjoying the process and really enjoying just going and doing a workout, pushing each other, but trying to stay light about it and enjoying the process.”
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Jamnicky, who graduated from CDCI West in 2010, has gone on to achieve success in the triathlon, which features swimming, biking and running. She went to the Tokyo Olympics this past summer as an alternate for the Canadian triathlon team.
In 2012, Jamnicky competed at the Under-23 World Championship in New Zealand and in 2015 placed 12th at the World Championships in Chicago.
One of her career highlights so far was competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia where she born. She now lives in Guelph where she runs the Guelph Development Squad, coaching younger athletes of all abilities in triathlon.
On Sunday, Jamnicky placed sixth in the women’s elite race with a time of 34:05, but was the fifth overall Canadian.
U.K. resident Sarah Inglis won the race in 31:59 while Leslie Sexton was second and the Canadian champion in 32:04. Natasha Wodak, who placed 13th in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, placed fourth Sunday in 33:33, not far ahead of Jamnicky, who was pleased with his result.
“I was able to rock a huge PB thanks to the amazing pace of our pack. Conditions were favourable for a negative split. There was a strong headwind on the way out and we were able to pick up the pace with a tailwind coming back,” Jamnicky said. “It was an unreal experience with amazing women. I hope to do more running race like these in the future.”
