Jenni Hucul
Athlete (2024)
Track and Field, Bobsleigh
When you’re talking about Jenni Hucul in track and field, make it quick.
Jenni was a sprinter.
She ran her first race when she was 12 and in Grade 8 at St. Anne School. That was in December. In June, she broke the provincial record in the bantam 100 metres. Later that summer she went to Pennsylvania for the Hershey Championships, an annual track and field competition for youth in North America. She won by a mile.
In Grade 9 at Bishop Mahoney, Hucul won the 100 and 200 in the city high school track and field championships at Griffiths Stadium. She won the 100 and 200 in the provincial high school championships at Jerome Field in Prince Albert. She still holds the record in all four events 21 years later.
Through four years of high school, she was 9-for-9 in sprint and hurdles finals at the city championships. She was 7-for-9 at provincials, getting back on the track only in late spring in Grade 12 after tearing the Achilles tendon near her left heel the previous June. With only two months of training, she won senior hurdles and the 100 in the city high school championships in 2006. She finished second in hurdles and was third in the 100 at provincials.
Indoors and out, from bantam to junior, Hucul ran times in her age class that were the fastest in Saskatchewan, the quickest in Canada, the best in the world.
She competed in the invitational 60 metres at the K of C Indoor Games when she was only 14.
She won the 100 at the Canadian junior championships in 2002. She won Canadian juniors again in 2003 and 2004.
She went to the 2003 World Youth championships in Sherbrooke. She qualified for the 2004 World Juniors in Italy. At the 2006 World Juniors in China, she ran a personal best in the first round of sprint hurdles. Her reaction time coming out of the blocks at worlds was explosive. Only one other runner in the field of 24 semi finalists was faster.
Her award list, to name a few, includes the Bob Adams Excellence Award as Saskatchewan’s midget female track athlete of the year, Sask Sport youth female athlete of the year and the Pat Lawson Trophy as Huskie Athletics female rookie of the year.
Todd Johnston was Hucul’s coach with the Saskatoon Track & Field Club. Johnston knows strength. He knows speed. As a talent scout for Bobsleigh Canada, he knew Hucul had the right stuff. He encouraged her to go for it. After her first year with the University of Saskatchewan track and field team, and finishing third in sprint hurdles at the Canadian university championships, Hucul joined the national bobsleigh program in Calgary.
She started the bobsleigh season in October 2007, finishing third in the two-person event with Alberta’s Lisa Szabon in nationals at Canada Olympic Park.
Hucul competed on the World Cup circuit that winter. In the season-ending competition in Germany, she won silver with Canada in the bobsleigh and skeleton world team championship.