sekou & kashani

so last night, i got to shoot photos with 2 of my favourite athletes, sekou kaba and kashani thomas. after having known these guys for a few years now and shot with them before, we decided to catch up and shoot a couple new flicks!

kash and sekou are both a part of the ottawa lions club. kash throws the javelin and sekou’s a 110m hurdler. sekou’s been living in canada since late 2007 and the two have pretty much been together ever since he got here. earlier this year, sekou went through a grueling process of trying to become a canadian citizen, to participate in the 2012 london olympics. this consisted of sending daily emails back and forth with government officials, regularly contacting the local MPs office, and a couple segments with CTV news and CBC radio. after those features came out, word actually got around that the dude was among the best in the country and that there was a possibility of him making the olympic team. 2 weeks after the news was broadcasted, sekou got the call to take his citizenship test; which he passed with flying colors.

shortly after that, sekou was named to the national team to represent the country in mexico for the NACAC championships (the north american, central american and caribbean championships), where sekou finished fifth (*which really isn’t bad for his first ever international meet). however, at the olympic trials in calgary, sekou came just short of running the olympic standard of 13.60 as he ran a 13.79, so canada did not send any athletes in the 110m discipline this year to london.

with that said, sekou’s looking forward to the next 4 years until the rio olympics! he’s more motivated than ever and the next few years should be a great turnout! next year alone he’s got 3 big international meets and his focus has now shifted to attending all three of those meets. they are the 2013 world championships in moscow, russia, the 2013 francophone games in nice, france (*i wonder, can you go to this without speaking french haha), and the 2013 FISU games in kazan, russia. damn homie!

kash has been killing it too! she’s currently a studio barre instructor at inside out studio here in ottawa and she’s also got her own handmade card business going too!

anyhow till the next time, i can’t wait to hear more about these guys in the future! haha they’re seriously super rad and amazing people!