The unseasonably warm temperatures in Winnipeg just might be due to all the heated track & field competition at the Jim Daly Bison Classic track & field meet this past weekend.

The morning session included a thrilling battle in the 300-metre between the nation's No. 1, No. 4 and No. 6 ranked runners.

Manitoba's Tyler Cox-Yestrau, a nationals qualifier with the fastest time in the country, placed second in a near photo finish against No. 6 ranked Josh Li from Alberta. The two came in at 34.30 and 34.09 seconds, respectively, while No. 4 ranked Devon Zuchotzki finished third at 34.37.

Concluding the morning session was women's high jump and men's shot put. In the shot put, Josh Suelzle led the Bisons with a throw of 14.85 metres for third place.

Teammate Graham Wright finished in fourth at 13.78m, adding to a stellar weekend that saw him win the weight throw the day prior.

Wright has not lost a weight throw competition that's occurred on Canadian soil this season, and is ranked second in the nation in the event, after a toss of 19.35 metres earlier this year.

That toss was the second-furthest in program history, less than a metre off Dariusz Slowik's throw of 20.02 metres in 2001.

This weekend's events marked the fifth straight week of competition for Wright, who's put up a ridiculous front squat PR of 165 kilograms in the gym this year.

"I had a fault yesterday at 19.72 metres," he added.

"It felt weird because it was a sector fault. I just released it too early. It felt good though. It felt like everything was put together. Heading into CanWest I want to compete as best as I can. I expect to win obviously like everyone does. But I just have to make sure that I do that myself."

In the women's high jump, nationals qualifier Lara Denbow proved to be the class of the event, winning with a jump of 1.72 metres, the highest of anyone in the country.

Denbow, a former NCAA Division 1 standout, is coming back from injury and made a big statement by jumping the auto standard of 1.71 at the Winnipeg Optimist Athletics Winter Open on campus a few weeks ago.  

In the afternoon session, a busy Donnae Gordon was the top Bison in the long jump, finishing ninth and John Olukoju earned another podium finish for the Bisons in the high jump, going over the bar at 1.94 metres which was good for third place. Teammate Hayden Caraoa finished sixth at 1.80.

Back on the track, the afternoon got off to a great start with Adam Andres winning the 60 metre hurdles with a run of 8.18 seconds. The best finisher for the Herd in the women's 60m hurdles was Sarah Smith in third at 9.34 seconds.

Andres is coming off a busy summer where he competed in the recently formed Canadian Track and Field League, which features some of the best athletes U SPORTS has to offer.

"It was a very long season, but I feel like I learned a lot about my body, because that's what turned out to be what I needed," said Andres, who auto-qualified for nationals, hosted by Manitoba March 7-9, at the very beginning of the season (8.09 seconds).

"I ran 14 races this summer. I went from a 14.70 PB [in the 110m outdoor hurdles] to a 14.10 in the last race. It was the best summer I had. I dropped my PB by .06 from last year."

Andres has also been dealing with a back injury, suffered shortly after he qualified for nationals. It's affected his ability to push out of the blocks, but didn't stop him from taking home first on Saturday.

"It felt fine. It was definitely there, but I chucked some tiger bomb on it and it worked. "It's more of a mental thing. I can run on it, it's more a mental battle of trying to ignore it and do my thing," noted the ever-confident sprinter.

"I can't really push that hard right now [out of the blocks], so it's nice to feel like I'm with the pack at the start. I almost fell over hurdle five. I kept my lean a little too long, but it was a strong race. It feels so nice to go 8.1 again, because I've gone 8.2 the last three runs. I know it's the injury and it makes sense that I'm going to run a little slower, but it's still nice to see that time when I'm at 85, 90 percent, just knowing there's more."

In the 600-metre race, Dana Poulton finished fifth. In the men's 600, household name Tristan Allen had the lead early on with training partner and nationals triple medalist Dawson Mann right on his back.

Mann eventually pulled past Allen and cruised to a win at 1:18.53. Allen ran hard as well and earned a third place finish at 1:19.31.

Next up was the 1500-metre races. Bisons Lena Klassen and Angela Kroeker led from the start to the finish, going 1-2 at 4:40.5 and 4:42.67 respectively.

A stacked men's race had two Bisons competing. Calvin Reimer finished fifth at 3:53.66 and Carson Kroeker finished tenth at 4:03.08.

Two feature events to finish the meet were the 60-metre sprints and the 4x400 relays.

Gordon won a tight 60m race with a great time of 7.63 seconds, a personal best and also the sixth fastest time in program history.

This comes mere weeks after running 7.67 in the same event, with a surgically repaired elbow after an injury suffered last January.

Gordon wore a brace until last summer, competing and showing incredible heart. She had her surgery in September, doing "a lot of core" during the base season, before getting back into the swing of things for meet season.

She still doesn't have full range of motion in her injured arm, but continues to put up incredible numbers.

"I didn't realize I was as resilient as this shows that I am. I still can't straighten my arm. When I'm in the blocks it's still bent. The fact that I'm still running now and it's been my best season yet, I couldn't be happier honestly," she said.

"I don't think the actual surgery hindered me too much because once I started getting back into things, I made it a point to catch up and get back to where I thought I should be. It worked."

In the men's race, Manitoba went 1-2 as Jordan Soufi posted a 6.77 second time (after blazing a 6.75 in the heats earlier in the afternoon) and Tyrell Davis ran a PB of 6.80 seconds, a top 12 time in the country.

In women's 4x400 m relay, the Bisons came from behind to win, with Gordon anchoring the team to a win by over 3.5 seconds.

The men's race had the Bisons in the early lead from the second lap of the first leg through to the final straightaway where Bisons and the Cougars went shoulder to shoulder and both finished with a time of 3:20.13.

Overall, Manitoba had ten first place finishes on the weekend and an additional nine top four finishes on Saturday.

Next up is the South Dakota State Invitational this weekend, followed by the Bisons Grand Prix at home, Canada West Championships February 23-24 and nationals at home March 7-9. Click here to get your tickets.