Athletes to chase world standards at Canadian track and field championships
Lori Ewing
Canadian Press
(CP) - A trip to Helsinki is on the line at this weekend’s Canadian track and field championships.
World champion Perdita Felicien and rising star Tyler Christopher headline a strong field for the Canadian championships this weekend in Winnipeg, one of the last chances to secure a berth for next month’s IAAF world championships in Helsinki. “Absolutely, the events are stacked,” said Athletics Canada head coach Alex Gardiner.
So far, Gardiner says, 24 athletes have met the stringent qualifying standards for Helsinki.
“We’re hoping to have a few more by the end of the weekend,” he said.
The athletes who have qualified need only to finish top four this weekend to secure their ticket to Finland. Those still chasing standards have until July 25 to achieve the strict qualifying marks - the one exception: results from the IAAF Super Grand Prix meet in Stockholm on July 26 also count.
In a meet that promises plenty of drama, the women’s 100-metre hurdles final will be one of the meet’s highlights, with Felicien rebounding from her second spill in less than a year. Disaster struck for the Pickering, Ont., native on July 5 in Lausanne, Switzerland, when she tripped over the last hurdle at the Athletissima Grand Prix. Felicien was in the lead and en route to a fast time when she tumbled hard to the track.
Felicien, whose crash in the final of the Athens Olympic kept her off the track for nearly four months, suffered no serious injury in her spill in Lausanne.
“She had some swelling on her left knee, and has been receiving treatment,” said her agent Renaldo Nehemiah. “She is training without any problems.”
The Canadian championships, which run through Sunday at the University of Manitoba, will also determine the teams for the World University Games, Aug. 11-21 in Izmir, Turkey, and the Franchophone Games in December in Niamey, Nigeria. The meet is also the first stage of qualifying for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia.
Other highlights in Winnipeg include the men’s 1,500 metres, where veteran Kevin Sullivan will be chased by fellow University of Michigan alumnus Nate Brannen. Sullivan, from Brantford, Ont., already has the world qualifying standard and is looking for his eighth national title.
The 22-year-old Brannen, from Cambridge, Ont., failed in his bid to make the Athens Olympics last summer, and is in hot pursuit of the world standard. He ran a personal best three minutes 37.8 seconds at a meet last weekend in Indiana, and needs to run 3:36.2 to go to Helsinki.
Christopher, who’s been tearing up the international track in the 400 metres, should run away with that event in Winnipeg. The 21-year-old from Edmonton has the fifth fastest time in the world, and collected his first major international victory at the prestigious Gaz de France meet two weeks ago in Paris.
“Tyler is in great shape,” said Gardiner. “Regrettably, there’s no-one really to challenge him here at that level, but I’m looking forward to Helsinki to see how he runs there.”