Ostertag rediscovers fun in track and field

Standout athlete almost quit sport due to rough couple of years

By Darren Steinke
Gordie Howe Sports Complex

Nicole Ostertag helped the Huskies win a Canada West title.

Nicole Ostertag was oh so close to hanging up her track and field spikes for good.

Having built a reputation as being one of the best combined events athletes to come out of Saskatoon in some time, Ostertag went through a 2024 season where she didn’t compete at all due to injuries and illness. She returned to action in early 2025 only to have another setback at the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, California, in April of that year.

“I hurt myself again, and that was really tough for me,” said Ostertag. “We were in California getting some early competitions in, and I took off funny in high jump and injured my knee.

“That was just devastating, and that was when I kind of decided that I had enough. My body seemed to be rejecting it, so I took a long break.”

The 25-year-old returned to the University of Saskatchewan to begin studying in the Master of Physical Therapy program. At that point, Ostertag considered rejoining the Huskies Women’s Track and Field Team.

She built a lot of great memories in her time with the Huskies that included setting the Huskies women’s program record for most points obtained in the pentathlon at 3,996 back in 2020. That record still stands to this day.

Ostertag approached Jason Reindl, who is the head coach of both Huskies women’s and men’s track and field teams, with the notion of making a possible return.

“I was ready to hang up my spikes and end my track career,” said Ostertag, who stands 5-foot-8. “I started my master’s of physical therapy at the university this year.

Nicole Ostertag makes a hurdles practice run on July 7, 2023.

“I realized I still had three years of eligibility left with the Huskies, and I decided I wanted to start going to the track again. I just did hurdles, and I’ve been only training three days a week. I started having fun again, and things have been going really well.”

At the Panda Open held this past February 6 and 7 in Edmonton, Alta., Ostertag broke the Huskies women’s team record in the 60-metre hurdles running in a time of 8.12 seconds. The old mark of 8.15 seconds run back in 2020 was held by one of her best friends in Michelle Harrison, who represented Canada running the women’s 100-metre hurdles in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.

Harrison’s record came in a gold medal winning race in the 2020 U Sports Track and Field Championships.

On the first day of this year’s Canada West Conference Track and Field Championships on February 20, Ostertag won the conference title in the 60-metre women’s hurdles running the championship final in a Canada West record time of 8.07 seconds edging fifth-year veteran Sienna MacDonald of the U of Calgary Dinos. MacDonald, who won both the Canada West and U Sports titles in the women’s 60-metre hurdles in 2024 and 2025, held the previous Canada West conference record in that event, running a time of 8.08 seconds in a preliminary race earlier in the day.

“It was so much fun, especially this year having Sienna MacDonald from Calgary to compete against,” said Ostertag, who also helped the Huskies women’s team win an eighth straight Canada West Conference team title. “She is a force, and she has been putting down crazy hurdle times for the last couple of years.

“To be able to kind of dethrone her, this is the first time she has been beaten in a while, it was fun. We are really good friends. We keep it light, so just having that energy between us is quite unique.”

On the second day of the U Sports Track and Field Championships on March 6 in Winnipeg, Man., Ostertag again edged MacDonald in championship race of the women’s 60-metre hurdles. Ostertag posted another Huskies program record time of 8.05 seconds to just edge MacDonald at 8.06 seconds. The Huskies women’s team finished second overall in the team points race at U Sports nationals, which wrapped up on March 7.

Nicole Ostertag, right, and Michelle Harrison are great friends.

Ostertag credited Reindl with helping her get back on track on the track. Reindl is well known for his ability to help athletes get healthy and stay healthy and perform their best in big competitions.

When he became the Huskies head coach in 2017, Reindl helped Harrison return to the sport and the Huskies after she became disillusioned having battled numerous injuries. Harrison went on to run better than she ever did piling up numerous accomplishments in making it to the 2024 Summer Olympics.

“I’m in a very similar position as Michelle (Harrison) was all those years ago, where she just decided to go back to school and do track for fun,” said Ostertag. “I came into this season just wanting to have fun, and Jason (Reindl) was fully accepting of that.

“He kept me limited to three practices a week. He would not let me over do it.”

Reindl said the key to bringing back the fun for Ostertag in track and field was to be intelligent with her training, which helps with confidence and shows through in competitions.

“I think it just goes into my, you know, kind of coaching philosophy,” said Reindl. “We are going to make smart decisions and really look at long term high performance.

“If we can stay healthy and get quality work in, there really are no limits. That is what Michelle (Harrison’s) kind of pathway was, and Nicole (Ostertag) is you know in this non-combined events world at the moment doing exceptionally well. We’re just excited to keep on working with her and seeing how far we can take this.”

Reindl said Ostertag has always been an extremely hard worker with a positive attitude. The coach added the star athlete’s day-to-day effort has allowed her to have the success she has had. For the Huskies as a team, Reindl said it has been big to have Ostertag back.

“It is awesome,” said Reindl. “She is such an exceptional athlete.

Nicole Ostertag throw a shot during the 2023 Saskatchewan provincials.

“Her ability to show what elite level high performance is like on the track and in training is just a huge positive for our team and program and our training group. It is just awesome.”

While she ended up with the Canada West record in the 60-metre hurdles, Ostertag entered the season with the desire to break Harrison’s Huskies record in that event.

“That was my goal coming into this year,” said Ostertag. “It kind of played into my motivation to come back.

“I wanted to go get Michelle (Harrison’s) record, because she is such a good friend to me, but we’re always trying to one-up each other. She is like one of the best hurdlers that Canada has seen, so to break her record is pretty darn special.”

Harrison stepped away from track and field after giving birth to a baby daughter named Izzy and starting a family with her husband, Graeme, in June of 2025. Ostertag and Harrison trained together for a number of years since the Track and Field Track opened on the Gordie Howe Sports Complex grounds in 2019, which helped develop their friendship.

In the summer of 2023, their training group included the pride of Borden in Savannah Sutherland, who made the final of the 400-metre women’s hurdles in the 2024 Summer Olympics, and star heptathlete Madisson Lawrence from Winnipeg, Man. That provided a lasting memory for Ostertag.

“It was so much fun just having so many elite women training together, and our coach Jason (Reindl) kept things light and made the hard training days feel a little bit easier,” said Ostertag. “I’m hoping that if Michelle (Harrison) makes her comeback that we can train together once again, because that was pretty special.”

With that said, Ostertag is doing her best to stay in the moment and enjoy the day to day of the sport of track and field. Still, she admits she has had visions of getting back into combined events or maybe pushing for the next Summer Olympics in 2028 in Los Angeles, California.

Nicole Ostertag, right, enjoys working with Jason Reindl, left.

“The thought has definitely crossed my mind,” said Ostertag. “When I came into this season, school was my priority, and track was just something I was going on the side.

“I did not expect to run this fast, but now that the joy has come back, I am starting to get the itch to start combined events again and maybe make a run at the 2028 Olympics. We will see. Time will tell.”

Small town gal living the dream

Sutherland still realizing NCAA title win did happen

By Darren Steinke
Gordie Howe Sports Complex

Savannah Sutherland does a drill at the Track and Field Track.

Savannah Sutherland is reminded often she is famous in a good-natured way during her Saskatchewan summer homecoming.

On June 10 at the 2023 National Collegiate Athletics Association Track and Field Championships held at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas, Sutherland won the championship race in the 400-metre women’s hurdles in a time of 54.45 seconds with the University of Michigan Wolverines. Along with claiming the NCAA title, Sutherland’s time was a personal best, set a school record, a Canadian U23 record and the 2023 world championship standard.

She just missed clipping Sage Watson’s overall Canadian record in the 400-metre women’s hurdles of 54.32 seconds set in October of 2019.

With having won an NCAA title with one of the most storied overall athletic programs in the Wolverines, Sutherland’s win made major rounds in mainstream media and social media.

In early July, she returned home and first spent quality family time in her hometown of Borden, which is located about 53 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon. She proceeded to return to the Track and Field Track on the Gordie Howe Sports Complex grounds to train with the elite national level crew that includes Michelle Harrison, Nicole Ostertag and Madisson Lawrence.

The training mates would send good-natured jabs Sutherland’s way telling her how well-known she was and that news of her heroics takes over their social media feeds. Sutherland, who turned 20-years-old on August 7, chuckled at the comments about her newfound fame. Due to the fact she was only in her second season with the Wolverines when she won her NCAA crown, Sutherland admits she still thinks that day was some sort of dream.

“It still feels surreal,” said Sutherland. “It almost feels like it didn’t happen to me.

“It is like someone that I watched on TV. It hasn’t sunk in that, ‘Hey, that was me on the track.’ It still feels pretty unreal.”

Savannah Sutherland jogs around the Track and Field Track.

Sutherland, who was 19-years-old at the time, entered the NCAA championship race as an underdog with Britton Wilson from the University of Arkansas and Masai Russell from the University of Kentucky pegged as the favourites. Russell finished second with a time of 54.66 seconds, while Wilson came in seventh at 55.92 seconds.

“I just wanted to get out hard,” said Sutherland about the NCAA title race. “I knew that there was a pretty big head wind on the back stretch, so I was just focused on that first 200-metres on getting out.

“It was around the 250-mark where I started wondering like, ‘Hey, where is everybody else.’ The two people that were favoured were on my inside, so I couldn’t see them for the whole race. Coming around that last curve, it kind of sunk in that, ‘Hey, I could win this thing.’

“Then, it was just trying to come home as strong as I could. It was a little scary, because I knew that they were coming after me. I was just hoping that I could hold them off for that last 150-metres.”

Sutherland, who stands 5-foot-8, was named the Women’s Track Athlete of the Year for the Big Ten Conference. Her lengthy list of accomplishments for the 2022-23 season included a Big Ten championship in the 400-metre hurdles, a Big Ten championship in the 4 X 400-metre relay for the indoor season, a first team all-American nod in the 400-metre hurdles and a first team all-American selection in the 400-metre race for the indoor season.

In the 400-metre race, Sutherland set a personal best time for outdoors at 51.41 seconds on February 25 and a personal best in indoors at 51.60 second in March 11. The indoor personal best came at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships held in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Sutherland said she couldn’t believe how many accomplishments she had until they were listed to her.

“It feels amazing, especially indoor, because it was my off event,” said Sutherland. “To still be able to get top eight at NCAAs indoor for the flat 400-metre was really great.

Savannah Sutherland, left, share a laugh with Nicole Ostertag.

“Those all-American honours and big 10 championships, it just kind of starts to stack up. You don’t really realize when you are running like how many school records have gone down and things like that. Being able to look back at that, it was just pretty spectacular to see all the work just in one space like that.”

Sutherland has enjoyed campus life at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich. She said it was different going into a lecture hall for a class and there were more people in the lecture hall than the entire population of Borden. In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Borden had a population of 281 people.

Overall, Sutherland has been amused when she explains to folks at the University of Michigan about where she is from.

“It is funny, because usually, I’ll be in a conversation with someone, and I’ll be like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m from a small town,’” said Sutherland. “They are like, ‘Oh, me too like there are only like 5,000 people.’

“I’m like you don’t understand. You don’t even understand. Once I try to explain it to people I think it is hard for them to even grasp like growing up in a place that small until they like see it on the map and there is only like six streets type of thing.

“It is really hard for them to actually wrap their minds around it that people actually come from places that small.”

Still, the gal from the small town has proven she can make an impact on the biggest stages. On July 30 at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Langley, B.C., Sutherland won the senior women’s 400-metre hurdles final in a time of 56.14 seconds. She just edged out Brooke Overholt from St. Mary’s, Ont., who had a time of 56.17 seconds.

Sutherland spent the majority of July training at the Track and Field Track on the Gordie Howe Sports Complex grounds preparing for nationals. She enjoys coming back to the state-of-the-art facility in Saskatoon to train.

Savannah Sutherland blasts over a hurdle while training on June 8, 2021.

“I’m always so excited to come home and just see everybody and reconnect with everybody,” said Sutherland. “This is where I grew up running.

“I’m always excited to come back here. I’m always excited to compete for Canada and compete for Saskatchewan. I never forget who I am representing even when I’m in the States.

“It is always mentioned, ‘Oh, girl from small town Saskatchewan.’ I’m really proud to be from where I am from.”