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Two Canadian records fell last week. One was in the shot put and the other in the 300m event. Meanwhile, the 400-metre world record was improved by 8/100ths of a second.

Update: The below world record cannot be ratified because the false start detection system was not used at the competition.

The world 400m record

Canadian Christopher Morales Williams raced to a world indoor record in the men’s 400 metres at the NCAA’s Southeastern Conference championships on Saturday in Fayetteville, Ark.

Williams, a 19-year-old from Vaughan, Ontario ran to a time of 44.49 to break the previous mark of 44.57 formerly held by American Kerron Clement from his 2005 performance on the same track.

Williams’s time also eclipsed the 44.52 mark by American Michael Norman whose performance could not be ratified.

Williams who competes for the University of Georgia as a sophomore took nearly one second off his previous best time of 45.39 set Feb. 9 at the Clemson Tiger Paw Invitational in South Carolina.

The national shot put record

Sarah Mitton put to a new national record at an indoor meet in Chechnya tossing the shot 20.08m. The 27-year-old Liverpool, Nova Scotia native earned a silver medal at the 2023 Budapest World Athletics Championships also with a 20.08m put outdoors, which is also the Canadian record. She is a Pan American, Commonwealth and World University Games gold medallist.

The 300m record

Lauren Gale, while competing at the Dome in Ottawa, ON, broke the national 300m record with her 36.48 performance in the 300m event. The 24-year-old Fredericton, NB native was a standout junior sprinter and now has stepped up in her efforts to make Team Canada.

At the 2019 Pan American U20 World Athletics Championships, Gale was a member of the silver medal-winning 4x400m relay team. In July 2021, she was part of Canada’s 2020 Olympic team in the women’s 4×400 relay as an alternate.

The pole vault record

Alysha Newman set a new indoor record in the pole vault clearing 4.83m at the Maison des Sports, Clermont-Ferrand in Paris, France on February 22nd.

The 29-year-old London, ON native is a five-time national as well as the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games champion in the event.

Following consecutive years of disappointing results, Athletics Canada moved to reduce Newman’s funding in October of 2022. However, she successfully appealed the decision. Newman returned to her successful competition level during the 2023 World Athletics Indoor Tour. There, she won the pole vault series and managing a 4.78m vault at the concluding Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix.

Her latest performance puts her on the path to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games as well as the Glasgow World Indoor Championships.

Regan Yee on track for a strong year

Regan Yee living on the lower mainland of Greater Vancouver is a South Hazelton, BC native. After competing well as a junior and for Trinity Western University, she has held the national 3000m steeplechase record for a period and set numerous personal bests over the past two years.

The latest two our in the mile and 3000m indoors at Boston University.

File photo from Harry Jerome Track Classic

Yee improved her mile best with a 4:24.95 performance on February on Feb. 9. Six days prior, on the same track, she clocked an 8:38.94.

Yee performed well at Boston U, having set her indoor personal best in Dec. 2023 at 15:18.93 there.

She is a five-time national champion and held the national outdoor steeplechase record at 9:27.54 in 2021. Previous record holder Genevieve Lalonde took it back during the Tokyo Olympic Games in August bringing the record down to 9:22.40. Yee set her now personal best time in the event during the National Track and Field Championships at McLeod Stadium in Langley, BC at 9:24.82 seven months ago.

Other notable performances by Canadians

Julie-Anne Staehli set new personal bests in the 1500m and mile (1609m) at Boston University Track and Tennis Centre in February.

The 30-year-old Goderich, ON native clocked a 4:10.73 and 4:27.20 over the two distances on Feb. 11 and 16, respectively.

Simone Plourde clocked new bests in the 1500m and mile as well. She ran 4:06.98 and 4:24.67 at the Armory Track & Field Center, New York, NY on Feb. 11. The 23-year-old Montreal native recently graduated from university having attended Brigham Young and the University of Utah.

Vancouver’s Glynis Sim won the provincial 10K road championships in Cobble Hill, BC on Vancouver Island. She raced to a big new personal best clocking a 33:23 on January 28. The 25-year-old then headed off to Boston to compete in the 3000m indoors at Boston University and subsequently clocked a new lifetime best of 8:52.57. The former University of British Columbia Thunderbird now represents the post-collegiate Vancouver Thunderbirds.

Video interview with Glynis Sim
Glynis Sim winning the 2024 BC 10K Road Championships at the Cobble Hill 10K on Vancouver Island. Photo credit: Joseph Camilleri.

In the marathon, a couple of Vancouver-area-based runners Leslie Sexton and Natasha Wodak had hoped to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in Houston in January. No such luck, they were close enough to warrant another go. We know at this time that Wodak will be competing in the Rotterdam Marathon at the 11th hour, as a last-ditch effort to run the required 2:26:50, which she has done better than with her national record set during the Berlin Marathon in 2022 clocking 2:23:12.

Named to Team Canada in the event is Cam Levins who lives in Portland, OR, but is from Vancouver. He is the North American record holder from the Tokyo Marathon in March 2023, where he ran to an impressive 2:05:36. Malindi Elmore of Kelowna, BC was also named to Team Canada in the marathon. Elmore has run as fast as 2:23:30, which she did at the 2023 Berlin Marathon.

In February, 27-year-old Rory Linkletter clocked a fast 2:08:01 in Seville, Spain to qualify for the Olympics this summer. This performance makes him the second-fastest Canadian all-time.

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