At the 2017 Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships (May 12-14), junior Marissa Kurtimah became the only athlete to be a double winner at the meet when she defended her titles in both the 100-meter dash and 200-meter dash on Finals Sunday.
The Guelph, Ontario, Canada native opened the final day of the league championship meet capturing the bronze medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay. Working with Taryn Smiley, Asha Cave and Holly Pattie-Belleli, Kurtimah, as the anchor leg, finished with a time of 45.09.
She captured her first repeat championship title in the 100-meter dash, posting a season-best time of 11.38, dropping 0.06 hundredths of a second from her top time in the prelim race, 11.44 seconds, on Saturday. With the first-place finish, she joined six other females to win the event twice in MVC history.
Kurtimah clinched the status of double event winner on Sunday with a first-place and season-best time of 23.57, after finishing second in the 200-meter dash on Friday with a time of 23.89. Again, she joined a select group of four other females to win the event twice in league history.
Closing the day with a sixth-place finish with the 4x400 meter relay team (3:48.24), Kurtimah helped the Bears to a sixth place-finish, capturing 22.25 of the squad’s 70 team points.
