Four U of A athletes will represent Canada at the 2025 FISU Games
“It feels good to be able to finally show off what I've been working towards a little bit,” Eze says.
Supplied Wes Eze, Rachel Grenke, April Kippers, and Tise Okuboyejo will swap their green and gold for red and white this summer. The four track and field athletes will travel to Germany to compete for Team Canada in the 2025 Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire (FISU) Summer World University Games.
Both Grenke and Kippers will be competing in pole vaulting, Okuboyejo will compete in the 400 meter hurdles. Eze, the only Golden Bear competing in the FISU games, will compete in shot put and discus.
Grenke told The Gateway she got her start as an elite gymnast before she went into pole vaulting. She did gymnastics for 14 years and stopped after high school.
“My current coach actually kind of sought me out and she got me into pole vaulting, so I’ve been doing it for about four years now,” Grenke said.
She has only been with the Pandas for two years, but captured gold in the Canada West Championship for women’s pole vaulting. Grenke also won silver in the U SPORTS competition this March.
“Being my second year, I had some more confidence and I kind of took one meet at a time,” she said. “I had goals for myself for sure, but I didn’t set super high expectations because my main goal always is to just have fun and enjoy what I’m doing.”
She said she thinks that her attitude helps her achieve those higher goals.
Kippers only just completed her rookie year with the Pandas, though she placed first in the Pandas Open for women’s pole vault and second in the Golden Bears Open. Kippers said she broke her personal best at Pandas Open.
For her, she got her start in pole vaulting when her mom saw an Instagram ad for it and signed Kippers up without her knowing.
“She told me that she just randomly signed me up and then I tried it and I ended up really liking it,” she said. Three years later, she’s set to compete on the international stage.
Kippers also said she’s excited to compete alongside Grenke at the FISU games.
“It feels good to be able to finally show off what I’ve been working towards a little bit,” Eze says
Eze started his track career back in junior high doing sprints. When he got to high school, he said his coach looked at him and sent him “straight off to throws.”
He said his experience with the Golden Bears “has been nothing short of a blessing.”
“It’s been a learning journey, for not only just being an athlete, but for learning how to interact with different people, people from different backgrounds and from different walks of life. And just being able to intermingle with everyone and understand how people think, how people do the things that they do.”
Eze won gold in men’s shot put at the Canada West Championship this year, as well as silver in men’s weight throw for the U SPORTS Championship. He was also named the 2025 Canada West Field Athlete of the Year.
Eze said those achievements have been the culmination of his last three years with the Golden Bears. He said he’s thankful to his coach, teammates, and a mental health performance coach.
“I put in a lot of work with [the mental health performance coach] this last year to really just get my mind in tune, be ready for those big meets. It’s really shown with this last year,” Eze said.
“It feels good to be able to finally show off what I’ve been working towards a little bit.”
The four U of A athletes will begin competing on July 21 in Bochum, Germany.
