The highlight event on the opening night of the Vancouver Sun Harry Jerome International Track Classic at Swangard Stadium was billed as the men’s 100-metre final, part of the Canada-China Team Sprint Challenge and featuring several of the world’s fastest men.
Sorry, gentlemen, that honor went instead to four very fast Canadian women, who toured the 4×400-metre relay distance in 3:32.08, beating the meet mark of 3:36.67 set in 2007 by another Canadian team. Such was their performance that the team of Madeline Price, Aiyanna Stwerng, Travia Jones and Sage Watson finished nearly 90 metres ahead of the Chinese team.
“I thought we each did our part,” said Watson after the race. “As a team, it would have been nice to run faster, but when you don’t have the competition and it’s a little bit cool out here tonight and if I think we had a little competition and little warmer weather, we could have gone under 3:30.”
