The three twilight track meets at Centennial Stadium over the late winter and spring, the last of which was conducted Saturday, produced some dramatic results among athletes who will be in Tokyo this summer for the Olympics and Paralympics.
Nate Riech broke his own world record in his 1,500-metre Para category two weeks ago in the second meet of the series. That was after Liam Stanley set the 5,000 metres world Para record in the first meet held in December.
The Island-based runners are expected to battle for the 1,500 metres T37/T38 gold medal in the Tokyo Paralympics. It is turning into an epic rivalry.
Riech won gold and Stanley was fifth in the 1,500 metres T37/T38 at the 2019 IAAF world Para track and field championships in Dubai. Riech won gold and Stanley silver at the 2019 Para Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. Stanley won the silver medal in the 1,500 metres at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, with Riech emerging since then.
Riech was hit on the head by a golf ball, driven at long range off a tee, when he was 10 in Arizona. He suffered a brain injury that inhibits the left side of his body with paralysis. He was able to compete against able-bodied athletes during his NCAA career at South Alabama.
Riech is a dual citizen. His father, Todd Riech, competed for the U.S. in javelin at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and mom Ardin Tucker in pole vault for Canada at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games.
Stanley was an all-rounder who starred at Oak Bay’s Glenlyon Norfolk School in able- bodied soccer, basketball and track, and made it to two Colonist Cup high school soccer championship games while winning three B.C. Single-A championships on the pitch.
Stanley has cerebral palsy and had a stroke at birth which affected the right side of his body. He was twice named Canadian Para-soccer player of the year. When Canada failed to qualify for the 2016 Rio Paralympics in soccer, Stanley turned to track, and the reward was silver in Rio.
Also going for the Tokyo podium will be Melissa Bishop of Ontario in the women’s 800 metres after her close-call fourth-place finish in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Bishop, who was based on the Island for the winter, raced in all three Victoria meets, recording a time of 2:02.5 in the 800 on Saturday, behind Madeleine Kelly, who finished in 2:02.4.
Bishop broke Victoria runner Diane Cummins’ Canadian women’s 800-metre record, which stood for 14 years, by going 1:57.52 in taking silver at the 2015 world championships and improving that to 1:57.01 in 2017. But only the last calendar year and a bit counts for Tokyo and Bishop’s fastest time in that span is 2:00.98 from February 2020. The qualifying standard for Tokyo is 1:59.50 and no one doubts she will get there.
Bishop wants to stay out of the backstory brewing in her event. Two-time defending Olympic 800-metre champion Caster Semenya of South Africa is appealing a 2019 ruling by World Athletics that would force her to take testosterone-lowering medication in order to compete in women’s events.
A cap has been placed on testosterone levels in women’s races from 400 metres to the mile for people with differences of sexual development because World Athletics says elevated testosterone is an advantage in female events. Semenya has lost appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Supreme Court of Switzerland. Her last chance is the European Court for Human Rights, but that appeal is unlikely to be heard before the Tokyo Olympics.
That could clear the way to the Olympic podium in Tokyo for Bishop, who only missed it by one spot in Rio, with Semenya in the field.
“I am only focusing on what I can do,” said Bishop, who expressed no opinion on the issue.
“The rest is out of my control. I can only focus on Melissa and what Melissa can do.”
The Victoria meets featured athletes from the Athletics Canada Western Hub training centre based at PISE. Only 50 people were allowed into Centennial Stadium for each meet, including runners, coaches and timers.
cdheensaw@timescolonist.com
