Joshua Riker-Fox wins Gold in the Mixed Relay at the Pan American Championships!

TORONTO (July 24, 2014) – A very strong Canadian Pentathlon contingent, including three Olympians headed to Mexico City this past weekend and lead Canada to one of its strongest team performances at the Pan Am Championships held in Mexico City. This event was part of the Olympic Festival hosted through the summer in Mexico and represents a significant event in lead up to next years Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games. 17 nations were in attendance at this competitive and collegial event.

Leading the notable performances for Canada was Melanie McCann (Mount Carmel, ON) who took home a silver medal in the Women’s Individual event very close behind London 2012 bronze medalist Yane Marques of Brazil. Melanie then teamed with Joshua Riker-Fox (Delacour, AB) in the Mixed Relay where they put together a thrilling GOLD medal victory.

Donna Vakalis (Toronto, ON) also demonstrated excellent form at the event finishing just out of the medals in fourth in the Women’s Individual event and then teamed with Mathea Stevens (Ottawa, ON) to win bronze in the Women’s Relay. Mathea finished the individual event in 12th position.

On the men’s side Joshua Riker-Fox, recently returning to competition, showed he was in fine form with a fifth place finish in the Men’s Individual event to go along with the Mixed Relay gold. Other individual results on the men’s side went to Evin Ballantyne (Baden, ON) in 25th and Bob Noble (Coquitlam, BC) in 28th with these two joining forces in the Men’s Relay finishing in 8th position.

Reflecting on this event, with three impressive medals and other strong results to the credit of the team, National Coach John Hawes noted, “This was an excellent stepping stone with Senior World Championships coming up in September and looking ahead towards Pan Am Games 2015. Many great performances were had by all the athletes. The gold medal in the Mixed Relay capped off the weekend. It was a great finish to end the competition singing Oh Canada with the athletes from several Pan American nations in attendance.”