MONTREAL—Athletics Canada head coach Glenroy Gilbert enjoys talking about , having run on the 4x100-metre team that won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games and having shepherded the current men’s squad to recent Olympic and world podiums. But when the topic turns to the , and how it’s shaping up for the , his enthusiasm hits a whole new level. He has good reason to be pumped.
Canada’s 4x400 women’s team has placed fourth often — at the last two Summer Olympics and the last two . Those near podium finishes were achieved with a mix of runners who, individually, had not run sub-51-second 400s. “When you bring them together, collectively they’ve done unbelievable things.
They punch way above their weight when it comes to major championships,” Gilbert said. “The beauty is, this year, we’ve got a couple of women already that have (times of) 50-point (seconds). We haven’t seen that in quite some years and there’s a couple of others in the field that can also do that.
” The national women’s 400-metre record of 49.91 seconds is one of the longest-standing records in Canadian track and field, set by two-time Olympic silver medallist Marita Payne-Wiggins at the 1984 Olympics. In the last month, runners have started closing in on it.
Ottawa’s Lauren Gale and Toronto’s Zoe Sherar more than met the Olympic qualifying standard earlier this month in the individual 400 event at a meet in Guelph. Gale clocked 50.47 seconds and Sherar 50.
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