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Canada was golden again on Wednesday at theToronto Pan American Games.
The successful day was capped off with the nation’s new golden boy of sprinting, Scarborough’s Andre De Grasse who earned a gold medal by finishing in the time of 10.05 over a strong field that included pre-race favourite Keston Bledman of Trinidad and Tobago, who owns a blistering 9.86 personal best. Second place went to Ramon Gittens of Barbados and third to Antoine Adams of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
De Grasse is having a fantastic year as he won double NCAA championships in the 100m and 200m, twice breaking the Canadian 200m record and running, albeit wind-aided, the fastest 100m time in Canadian history with his 9.75 performance. His 200m best is now 20.03.
If De Grasse is putting Canada back on the sprinting map, then Eganville, Ontario’s Melissa Bishop is keeping the 800m legitimate. She along with Langley’s Fiona Benson and North Vancouver’s Jessica Smith and several other Canadians that are not too far behind them are performing well over the distance.
Today Bishop won gold in the time of 1:59.62, her second best time so far. She set a new personal best last week in Lucerne, Switzerland running 1:59.52. Perhaps more importantly she defeated American Alysia Montano who finished second in 1:59.76. Montano owns a personal best of 1:57.34. Third went to Flavia Del Lima of Brazil who finished in 2:00.40, which was a personal best performance.
In the Decathlon Damian Warner leads the field with 4460 points over Brazilian Felipe Dos Santos (4397) and Rodrigo Sagaon of Mexico with his total so far of 3748.
Tomorrow night offers a continuation of the decathlon as well as several final events including the potentially very exciting 10,000m women’s competition set to start at 7:40PM EST. Read the 10,000m preview here.
View tomorrow’s complete schedule here.
