Gay

John Gay’s Olympic dream was born the summer of 2016. He spent the summer training with Canadian Olympic steeplechaser Chris Winter and “up until that point, it seemed so distant but getting to know Chris, and others who would later represent Canada that summer, had a humanizing effect for me,” said Gay. “I committed myself to doing everything in my power to make sure when the next Games came around, I’d be ready.”

True to his word, Gay put in the work and five years later he’s ready to represent Canada on the world’s biggest stage.

Gay spent months racing in the U.S. throughout the spring and summer of 2021 in search of the elusive 8:22.00 Olympic standard in the 3,000-metre steeplechase. But each race he came up just short. As a last-ditch effort, Gay jumped on a plane and headed to Sweden the final weekend of June.

On the first leg of his trip, something didn’t feel quite right. He had a gut feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be heading to Europe, so he “pulled the plug” when he landed in Montreal. He needed to be in Montreal. He needed to run the Canadian Olympic Trials.

That gut instinct paid off. Gay ran seven solo laps at Montreal’s Claude Robillard Sports Complex for an 8:20.68 finish – a three-second personal best, the national title, meet record and the Olympic Entry Standard. “It was kind of the storybook ending to this long chase of a season,” said Gay following the race.

Up until that night in Montreal, Gay’s 2019 season had been his best to date. He competed in the toughest race of his life at the World Cross Country Championships in March, qualified for his first World Championships at the age of 22, came back from a long summer season to finish fifth at the Canadian Cross Country Championships and secured his spot on Team Canada for the 2020 Pan Am Cross Country Cup. To top it off, he learned that he’d received national carding for the first time in the fall of that year.

After running cross country in high school, Gay moved from Kelowna to Vancouver for university and ran as a University of British Columbia Thunderbird. He finished his undergrad in four years, but when he found out that his team would be joining U SPORTS, and therefore he would be receiving that magical fifth year of eligibility, he decided to enrol in a Masters program. During his time at UBC, the men’s program won a National NAIA title and competed at the U SPORTS cross county final.

One of the youngest athletes on the Canadian athletics team, Gay is confident that he’s ready to compete with the world’s best steeplechasers in Tokyo.