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Canadian athletes are competing in Ottawa, Ontario, this weekend at the Canadian Track and Field Championships, looking to secure spots on Team Canada before the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships.
Women’s 5000 metres
Gabriela DeBues-Stafford clocked in a season-best 5000 metre performance for the win at the national championships on Thursday. She finished in 15:17.32, looking composed. The seven-time national record holder has a 5000m North American indoor best of 14:31.38, which is also the fastest Canadian indoor and outdoor performance all time. She was well off that result, but could have raced just fast enough to win.
Taking second was one of Canada’s great 3000m steeplechasers, Regan Yee, in 15:23.22. Chloe Thomas finished in 15:25.47, while Erin Teschuk clocked in at 15:35.08 for fourth.
Yee, in June, ran a season’s best over the distance at Griswold Stadium in Portland, going 15:10.61. Her personal best from 2024 is 15:01.84. Thomas has run faster indoors with a 2024 Boston University performance of 15:17.47; however, the trials performance is a new outdoor personal best.
DeBues-Stafford is on a big comeback after more than two years down with injuries. She contemplated retirement, but has now raced several times this season with improved performances.
100m sprints
Gatineau, Quebec native Audrey Leduc won the Canadian Track and Field Championships 100 metre dash in 11.06 seconds on Friday. She now qualifies for the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships.
“I’m happy because one of the goals was to finish first. This is head-to-head racing, so you need and you want to win in those situations. So I’m happy with that. I think I would’ve liked to run a bit faster and run under 11 seconds, but I’m happy with the result overall,” Leduc said as per an Athletics Canada press release.
Duan Asemota won his first outdoor Canadian championship. He bettered three-time Olympic medallist Aaron Brown to finish in 10.12 seconds. The finish was close as the two were separated by one one-hundredth of a second.
“This has been the craziest year of my career. Last year, I came forth, and I was bawling my eyes out after the race. I was distraught. I went into the Olympic Games injured. I took so much time off. So all those times I spent running in the pool, all the rehab I did, all the practitioners I saw, the miles I drove just to get healthy, indoor was great to win. But when we do indoor and outdoor, it just shows how dominant I can be, and I want to show I can dominate the sprints,” Asemota shared with Athletics Canada.
Eliezer Adjibi finished third in 10.21. Sade McCreath finished second in 11.09, while Jacqueline Madogo clocked in at 11.21.
800m
Marco Arop had no problem dispatching the field during the heats. He is, after all, one of the top 800m runners in the world right now and the fastest in Canadian history. The Edmontonian clocked in a 1:44.46 win during Heat 2 on Friday. Ten athletes ran sub 1:50 between the two heats.
Abdullahi Hassan took second in 1:47.30, while Matti Erickson finished in third in the time of 1:47.32 to qualify for the next round.
The results are combined finishes from Heats 1 and 2. Arop took Heat 2, while Justin O’Toole finished second in 1:47.50 and Kaden Kingsmith took third in 1:48.85 for the fourth and sixth-fastest times between the two heats. Alanzo Ryan was the third fastest in Heat 1 behind Hassan and Erickson, clocking 1:48.84.
Canada, at times, has had some very fast women in the two-lap event. Some of the top 1500m runners could have competed in the 800m distance internationally. Currently, there is an ebb in the event. However, giving nationals a good go were Maeliss Trapeau, taking Heat 1 in 2:03.83, while Jazz Shukla took Heat 2 in 2:04.27. The Canadian women will need to run sub-2:00 to be able to mix it up internationally.
The 26-year-old Shukla has run as fast as 1:58.20 in 2024. In May this year, Trapeau snuck under “2” with a 1:59.09 performance in Toulouse, France.
The finals, running Saturday, may flesh out who can be consistently well under two minutes in the 800m as the international best are running sub-1:56.00.
Shoestrings…
Stateside in Eugene, Oregon, at the USATF national championships and Worlds Trials, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, Jacious Sears, Jenna Prandini, Terry Twanisha, Aleia Hobbs and Kayla White all finished in their various heats under 11.00 seconds. Meanwhile, Sha’Carri Richardson, who was arrested at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport before her event, raced one heat in 11.07 and left the stadium having automatically qualified for Tokyo.
As for the men, a number finished well under 10 seconds, including Kenny Bednarek with a new personal best of 9.79, Courtney Lindsey in 9.82, T’Mars McCallum in 9.83PB, Trayvon Bromell clocked in 9.84SB, Christian Coleman in 9.86SB, Maurice Gleaton in 9.92 PB 9.91 and Ronnie Baker with his season best performances of 9.92 and 9.92.
Andre De Grasse sat out the Canadian Trials, having already made Team Canada.
Several national championships are happening during the weekend, including the British, Spanish, German, US, Canadian, Irish, Italian, French and Dutch.
