Rachel Grenke captures bronze at 2025 World University Games

Edmonton’s Rachel Grenke brought home Canada’s first medal in Athletics on Friday night, securing bronze in pole vault. The University of Alberta Pandas standout reached over the bar at 4.35m to secure third place.  

A U SPORTS silver medalist in each of her first two seasons at the U of A, Grenke crushed her personal best in bringing home bronze. Her prior PB was 4.28m, which she surpassed in the round prior when she vaulted over the 4.30m mark on her first attempt, one of just five individuals to reach the height.  

In the following round, the Pandas school record holder secured herself a medal when she passed 4.35m, ahead of Elise Geerte Paulien De Jong of The Netherlands and Toriana Jo Thomas of the United States of America. 

In other day five highlights, school and provincial record holder Daxx Turner (Neepawa, MB / University of Manitoba) advanced to the finals of triple jump tomorrow, while Alec Purnell (Dundas, ON / McMaster University) surged into tomorrow’s semi-finals in the 800m. 

Turner, battling an injury, was calm, cool and collected in all three rounds of triple jump. He finished fourth in group A qualification with a top jump of 15.91m on attempt one, exceeding his Bisons indoor record of 15.82. His final jump would’ve been good for 16.30m – the second best in the competition – but he was called for a fault.  

Meanwhile, Purnell – the U SPORTS gold medalist in the 3000m who set three Marauders indoor records this past year – advanced to the semi-finals of the 800 with a qualifying time of 1:49.22. That result was good for third in his heat and seventh in the field, and was also a season’s best. He kept with the lead pack of seven for the entire duration of the race, with the front five pushing ahead in the final 50m. 

Elsewhere, Lauchlan Irish (Victoria, BC / University of Lethbridge) set a personal best on his first attempt in group B triple jump qualification, finishing one spot shy of the finals with a leap of 15.69m. Jake Neufeld (Saskatoon, SK / University of Saskatchewan) and Emanuel Desilets (Laval, QC / Western University) also set personal and season’s bests in the decathlon, putting themselves in excellent position heading into tomorrow’s conclusion. 

Neufeld reached a personal best in the 100m (11.25 seconds) and 400m (50.57 seconds), while Desilets did the same in the 400 (50.59 seconds) and hit season bests in the 100 (11.43 seconds) and high jump (1.79m). The duo also competed in the shot put and long jump on day one, and wrap up the decathlon tomorrow with the 100m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500m. 

Also competing on Friday were Georgia Bernhard (Guelph, ON / University of New Brunswick) and Marisha Thompson (Victoria, BC / University of Victoria) in the 3000m steeplechase (10:34.56, personal best and 10:21.23 respectively) Lara Denbow (Neepawa, MB / University of Manitoba) and Celia Markovinovic (Puslinch, ON / University of Waterloo) in high jump (1.71m each), Chloe Coutts (Toronto, ON / Western University) in the 1500m (4:28.01) and Dawson Mann (Sanford, MB / University of Manitoba) in the 800m (1:50.66). 

Action continues tomorrow with 18 Canadians competing.