There was an air of urgency to the 27th Victoria International Track Classic held at Centennial Stadium on Wednesday night. That’s because the days are growing short to make the Canadian team for the 2015 Pan American Games.
There haven’t been many Canadian track and field teams to major Games selected without benefit of the annual national trials. But the 2015 Pan Am Games, beginning July 10 in Toronto, start relatively early in the season. So it was decided the Canadian team will consist of the top-two national performers who have the best times or distances in each event up to Sunday’s cut-off date.
Victoria’s was the penultimate North American meet remaining within that time frame, with many of the runners and field athletes now heading to the final-chance meet Sunday in Portland, Oregon.
Fiona Benson, from Fort St. John, who has cut seven seconds off her time in under a year, won the women’s 800 metres in a photo finish with 2012 London Olympian Melissa Bishop of Ottawa. Both were across in 2:01.02 with only 4/1000ths of a second difference between them. They are now 1-2 for the Pan Am Games team.
“Oh my God, this is getting tight . . . there’s not a lot of time remaining,” Bishop said.
“It’s great for Canadian 800-metre running. It’s good to see Canada becoming a contender now. I wanted to come out of this race with no regrets, and I have none.”
Benson is not only shocking the Canadian track establishment, but herself. “I said I would go into my final CIS season [at Trinity Western] as a make-or- break year,” she said. “If it didn’t happen, I would go on to the next thing in life. I began to relax.”
And it began to happen.
“It’s so close right now, with one more race left. I’m starting to get excited,” she said.
The Gary Reed men’s 800 metres — named in honour of the former Victoria-based world championships silver medallist and fourth-place Olympian in Beijing 2008 — was won by Joe Abbott of the U.S. in 1:47.72. Canadians Anthony Romaniw and Thomas Riva were second and third in 1:47.74 and 1:48.61, respectively.
“I wanted to win, but didn’t have the gears at the end,” said Riva, the UVic Vikes star who was running on his home track. Riva is now targeting the 1,500 metres Sunday in Portland as his last chance to make the Pan Am Games.
There was no shortage of sprint speed coming out of the blocks. Muna Lee, from the U.S., fourth in the 200 metres and fifth in the 100 metres at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, won the women’s 100 on Wednesday in 11.52. The men’s 100-metre title went to 2012 London Olympian Ramon Gittens of Barbados in 10.19 to match the meet record set by Olympic- and world championships-medallist Ray Stewart of Jamaica in 1996.
Patricia Hall of Jamaica, 4x400 silver medallist at the 2014 IAAF world indoor championships and three-time NCAA all-American at the University of Tennessee, won the women’s 400 metres in 52.54. Jamaica swept the 400 metres with Dane Hyatt taking the men’s race in 46.23.
BATON EXCHANGES: The Canadian team for the 2015 IAAF world track and field championships, Aug. 22-30 in Beijing, will be selected through the more normal method — the Canadian trials next month in Edmonton . . . The Alberta capital will also host the Canadian Olympic trials next year.
