Canadian athletics records fall as more athletes qualify for Paris 2024
An impressive weekend was highlighted by Audrey Leduc's new 100m record.
Audrey Leduc set a new Canadian record in the women’s 100m sprint on Saturday, as part of a banner weekend for Canadian athletics.
The 25-year-old from Gatineau, Quebec clocked a time of 10.96 seconds at a meet in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, finishing in second place. It beats the previous Canadian record of 10.98 seconds, which was set by Angela Bailey in 1987.
The time also shatters Leduc’s previous personal best of 11.08 — set in Florida in March — which was already an impressive 0.30 seconds faster than her best time coming into 2024.
Saturday’s time of 10.96 is also below the Olympic qualifying standard of 11.07, which she narrowly missed at that aforementioned event in Florida. As a result, the Laval University business student has now booked her spot at Paris 2024 this summer.
On Sunday, experienced Canadian race walker Evan Dunfee and up-and-coming teammate Olivia Lundman qualified for Paris 2024 in the marathon race walk mixed relay. Dunfee, 33, began coaching Lundman, 21, in their home province of British Columbia earlier this year.
Sunday’s race at the World Athletics team championships in Antalya, Turkey saw them clinch one of the final qualification spots, finishing 21st in a time of 3:07:10, with 22 qualification spots on the line. The time is also a new Canadian record.
The new Olympic event replaces the men’s 50km event that Dunfee won a bronze medal in at Tokyo 2020. The 42.2km event is broken up into four legs — with the man starting out with 12.195km, the woman doing the next 10km, and then each doing another 10km.
Dunfee will also compete in the men’s 20km walk in Paris, with the two-time Olympian qualifying for that at the World Athletics Championships last August.
Saturday was a successful day for a couple of other Canadian stars, with hammer thrower Ethan Katzberg and 800m specialist Marco Arop both putting up winning performances in their respective events as well.
Katzberg, the reigning champion at the world championships and Pan American Games, crushed his Canadian record with a throw of 84.38m at the Kip Keino Continental Tour in Kenya.
Not only did he beat his own Canadian record by just over three metres, Katzberg threw the best distance by anyone in the event since 2008. The world record belongs to Yuriy Sedykh, who recorded a distance of 86.74m while competing for the Soviet Union in 1986.
Katzberg’s throw would have been good enough to win the gold medal at every previous Olympics other than 1988, where Sergey Litvinov of the Soviet Union set the still-standing Olympic record of 84.80.
He was already seen as a podium contender for the Olympics this summer, but Saturday’s throw may just leave Katzberg as the favourite heading into Paris.
Arop, who set a new Canadian 800m record with a time of 1:42.85 in September, opened his outdoor season with a bang in Xiamen, China in the first Diamond League event of the season.
The reigning world champion in the event won the season opener in a time of 1:43.61, narrowly hanging on despite a big push down the final stretch from Kenya’s Wyclife Kinyamal, who ended with a time of 1:43.66. Botswana’s Tshepiso Masalela finished third in 1:43.88.
Other Canadians competing in the Diamond League opener in China were Sarah Mitton, who finished fourth in women’s shot put, and Regan Yee, who finished eighth in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase.
The countdown to the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics is on, with athletics set to take centre-stage in the French capital from August 1-11.
Thank you for reading this post on True North. To be the first person to read future posts, and listen to new podcast episodes, subscribe for free using the button below, or share the article with someone you know.