After 10 days, Team Canadian was proud to come home victorious: 5 medals, 15 top 8 finishes, 4 Canadian records and numerous personal best performances. As a nation, we tied our best ever performance on the IAAF World Championship Placing Table.
With part 1 earlier this month, this report concludes our track & field updates for a while, until we start to gear up for Tokyo next year.
Despite the air conditioned stadium, the track (and field) were hot all week, and numerous world records and world leading performances pushed competitors in all events, from the 10,000m to the 400m, the javelin throw to the long jump, to area, national and personal records.
At the end of Day 6, first day of the decathlon, Damian Warner and Pierce LePage were sitting first and second overall, but less than 50 points separated first from fourth. Unfortunately, neither of the 3rd or 4th place men, including world record holder Kevin Mayer, were able to complete the events of Day 2. However, there were other surprise performances that kept the Canadians from walking away with the top hardware. After some tough luck in the pole vault and javelin events, Warner and LePage were sitting 2nd and 4th, respectively, heading into the 1500m final. After a huge javelin throw that launched him into third, the young German Niklas Kaul pulled out all the stops, running a 4:15 (very competitive by decathlete standards) to take the win, relegating Warner to the bronze medal position yet again. LePage finished 5th.
The men’s 4x100m heats on Day 8 were so fast that despite running season best times, both Canada and Jamaica missed out on qualifying for the finals! Sage Watson was 8th in the 400mH.
In what is widely considered the fastest 1500m ever, 9 women ran faster than 4 minutes, including Gabriela Debues-Stafford, who broke her own Canadian record by almost 3.5 seconds (3:56.12) to finish 6th. This performance was immediately followed by an equally hot 5,000m final, where 11 out of 15 women ran PB times, not the least of which was Andrea Seccafien‘s first sub-15.
Field events round-up: Brittany Crew was 8th in the women’s shot put, while Tim Nedow was 9th in the men’s competition. Michael Mason finished 7th in the men’s high jump.
On the final day of competition, Mohammed Ahmed hung with the lead men in the 10,000m until the final lap when he just lost touch. But his perseverance was rewarded with a 6th place finish and a new Canadian record of 26:59.
Up next month: a recap of the fall’s world marathon majors and STWM!
