Some of Canada’s best went diamond mining in Oregon and scored some precious medals.
Team Canada defended their home turf, and trails, and mountains in Saskatchewan.
If you spent the weekend cleaning gutters, closing the pool, or getting in a good jog in the brisk September air – congrats! That sounds great. So productive.
But you might have missed a lot of good news from the world of Athletics. Let’s get you up to speed.
De Grasse's Season's Best Good for Gold
Just in case the world’s fastest 200 metre runners thought the road to Olympic gold in the event didn’t go through the defending champ, Andre De Grasse set the record straight.
De Grasse blazed to a season’s best time of 19.76 seconds to win the Diamond League Final at the Nike Prefontaine Classic in Eugene Oregon. His first Diamond League trophy gets added to a long list of track accolades – not to mention the fact that this is Canada’s first Diamond League title since Dylan Armstrong was on top of the shot put world in 2011.
“It’s my first one, so I’m pretty grateful for that, to be able to get one, put it up in my trophy case with all my medals,” De Grasse said. “Definitely looking forward to getting more in the future, but this one feels great.”
Does the road to Paris 2024 start now?
“Next year’s a big year obviously with the Olympics, so I wanted to try to just give it all to try to see where I’m at going into next season,” De Grasse said.
Arop’s Record Run Scores Diamond League Silver
Marco Arop’s successful Diamond League season wrapped up in style, as he finished 2nd in the men’s 800 metres in a Canadian record time of 1:42.85, eclipsing Brandon McBride’s time of 1:43.24 that has stood for more than five years.
It took a personal best, world-leading from 800 metre star Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya to edge Arop by five one-hundredths of a second at the line.
Arop adds this Diamond League silver to his 2023 World Championship in another breakout season.
Mitton Shoots Her Shot for Silver
Sarah Mitton scored her 14th top-2 finish of the season in Eugene, taking her second consecutive Diamond League final silver medal with a top throw of 19.94 metres.
“Really consistent…just hoping to build off of that for next year,” Mitton said after her performance.
American Chase Ealey threw a personal best and U.S. record distance of 20.76 to claim the Diamond League trophy.
Papaconstantinou Makes Her Mark in Eugene
Marissa Papaconstantinou wasn’t quite ready to call it a season after two medals at the World Para Athletics Championships in Paris in July.
When the Nike Prefontaine Classic hosted a women’s 100 metre race for para athletes, it’s only natural that the 2021 Paralympic medallist would get into the starting blocks at the event hosting the Diamond League Final.
Papaconstantinou took 5th place with her time of 13.42.
Canada Collects NACAC Mountain and Trail Running Accolades on the Prairies
With the best mountain and trail runners in the NACAC regions descending on Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park, Team Canada rode their home-field advantage to some stellar results.
Saturday Speed Demons
Chris Balestrini was the class of the field on Day 1, smashing the course record en route to gold in the men’s 50 km trail event.
Care Nelson took bronze in the women’s 10 km event.
Sunday Run Day
Team Canada earned silver in the women’s 10 km event on the last day of racing, while the men’s team took bronze.
