From Athletics Canada

It was a bittersweet night for Vancouver’s Ceili McCabe, who won her first senior national title but missed the World Athletics Championship qualifying mark of 9:30.00 by a mere 0.69 seconds. The 23-year-old University of Michigan athlete kicked past Olympic steeplechaser Regan Yee with 250 metres to go to secure the win and run a one-second personal best.  

“It wasn’t the plan going in to save a big kick for the end,” said McCabe, who now hopes to qualify for the World championship via World Athletics Points, “but I saw the clock and realized it was going to be tight.”

In the men’s steeplechase, John Gay again got the best of his two main Canadian rivals: Ryan Smeeton of Calgary and Jean-Simon Desgagnés of Québec. The Vancouver athlete and 2020 Olympian stopped the clock at 8:20.77, three seconds ahead of Smeeton, and defended his national title in the process.

“All season I’ve just been trying to test where my fitness is at, knowing that, once I’m on the world stage I’m going to be much smaller fish in a much bigger pond,” said Gay. So, the plan tonight was to go hard from the gun.”

McCabe is now ranked 48th in the world with her new personal best. Athletics Canada placed world rankings and time as equally as important for the World Athletics Championships.

Gay, a Tokyo Olympian is currently ranked 25th in the world. His best is from Tokyo at 8:16.99.

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