Sebastian Saville ran down the lane at a track at York University. He was in pain, his foot hurting as he turned towards the final 60 meters. And then it snapped.
Saville was competing in the 600 meters for Guelph University in 2014. He suffered a navicular stress fracture on his right foot, hobbling past the finish line.
The 24-year old is now one of the most accomplished U Sports track athletes today, as he holds Carleton’s record in the 600, 800 and 1,000 metre races. In fact, he holds the top nine 600 metre marks at Carleton, including a record of 1:17 minutes from this past January.
However, back in 2014, he was a long way away from today’s success. That race was Saville’s last chance at making nationals and although his foot was in pain, he recalled how his coach told him it was his last chance.
“Obviously, as an athlete . . . that’s not a choice,” Saville said. “When you’ve been out of it and you want to compete and be on the team and prove yourself, you’re always going to put yourself on that line.”
However, the pain was still there.
“It kept hurting, I tried to push through practices that week but nothing helped,” he recalled. “When I got on the line at York the next week, I could barely do strides, any warmup hurt a lot. I didn’t run really run well, it snapped. In the moment, when I actually broke my foot, it was ‘oh shit.’ “
Track was everything for the Ottawa native, whose two parents met at a track meet.
Carleton teammate Emmanuel Nwokobia called Saville “very dedicated” and pointed out how although Carleton coaches encourage athletes to train two times a week, Saville is there six days a week.
So, when Saville got the stress fracture diagnosis, his career was up in the air.
“Especially after that race was one of the lowest points in my life so far,” he said. “Recovering from that has been a long process. For a number of years, I found it hard to push hard in races because I was worried about my foot snapping.”
Being away from the sport led to something deeper as well.
“You lose your identity,” he noted. “That whole part of your life you devoted so much into is suddenly gone. You can’t do anything on it. You kind of lose yourself in a way.”
The injury led to him questioning his track career as well.
“It makes you wonder if you made the right choice,” he said. “Suddenly, everything you work before is gone—or seemingly gone.”
However, his persistence pulled him through. It also opened a new chapter of his life as he transferred from Guelph to Carleton. He got to return home to Ottawa, to discover “a new path” and identity.
The fall had been coming, Saville noted. He struggled to balance school and track at Guelph. He didn’t sleep well and didn’t take care of his body or understand it as well, which is what led to the injury.
He didn’t know if he had a future in competitive running until he ran his first ever under 1:50 time in the 800 metres in the summer of 2015.
“It was crazy,” he remembers. “I was like, ‘what’s happening.’ “
He made the national finals in Edmonton later that year, a confirmation that he did have a future in track.
Ever since then, he’s been successful at Carleton, having found the balance between school and track, and taking better care of his body. It involves getting enough sleep, not training in spikes, eating right.
One thing that didn’t change was his competitive spirit; he attributes that to his parents.
“I’m very competitive . . . I will just compete. People are sick of me,” he said. “I don’t think it’s about beating people. I think it’s about learning about people. You see how people react to adversity during races.”
Nwokobia said he is inspired by Saville.
“Most people give up, let injuries take over them,” he said. “Sebastian is a person that is going to come back stronger than ever before. And he did come back stronger.”
Despite Saville’s success, Nwokobia called him “humble” and said “he never looks down on you . . . he doesn’t let [success] get to his head.”
“He doesn’t see failure as failure,” Nwokobia added. “He sees it as a learning curve.”
The biggest twist in his career was perhaps the injuries. Saville noted growing up, he would have not imagined this being his journey.
“You always picture the big moments but I don’t think you picture the smaller moments,” he said. “[People] don’t see a big injury along the way or how they recover from that, years of training.”
The success had also provided a sense of vindication for his past struggles.
“Seeing what I have been able to achieve has made a lot of the hard parts of the last four years,” he said. “It’s shown that it’s paid off to go through that process.”
Saville will graduate from Carleton this year but still has two years of U Sports eligibility left. He wants to either get started running track professionally or pursue a master’s degree and keep competing at the university level.
For him, the ultimate goal is to represent Canada at the international stage. The world championships and Olympics would be the dream.
While he does celebrate his achievements, as a competitive person, Saville said he always looks to the future, at the next goal, his next record, his next medal.
“It would almost be scary if there weren’t any more goals to achieve,” he admits.
This March, Saville fell short at nationals, finishing fourth in the 600 metres to cap off his indoor season. He called it “disappointing” as the last 50 metres didn’t go as planned.
However, this time, unlike 2014, he didn’t hobble over the line. He didn’t have to rediscover his identity although he understands the benefits of having endured that experience.
“It gives you a lot of perspective,” he said. “It gives you an appreciation of how far I’ve come from there. I’ve gone from thinking that I would never run again to be able to almost medalling at a national finals.”
