On Sunday on the Canadian Half Marathon Championships, held as a part of the 2024 Manitoba Marathon in Winnipeg, Vancouver’s Natasha Wodak discovered herself again on high of the rostrum after a difficult spring, beating a loaded ladies’s discipline in 1:12:56. On the lads’s aspect, Canadian report holder Cam Levins gained the race for the third consecutive 12 months, in preparation for the Paris 2024 Olympic marathon.
Levins wins his third straight title
The race started in cool circumstances (17 C) with 95 per cent humidity, making for slower-than-usual occasions on the sometimes quick and flat Winnipeg course. Levins’s profitable time of 64:23 was his slowest of his three victories, however nonetheless sufficient to interrupt the tape forward of Vancouver’s Thomas Nobbs (66:15) and Winnipeg’s personal Sam Vincent (66:55).
Final 12 months, Levins set the course report of 61:41. “I do know the course just like the again of my hand now,” Levins stated in a post-race interview with the Winnipeg Free Press. “It’s an actual pleasant ambiance. I’m comfortable coming again 12 months after 12 months right here.”
Levins is one in every of six Canadian athletes who acquired an early nomination to the Paris 2024 staff. He’ll characterize Workforce Canada within the males’s marathon alongside Calgary’s Rory Linkletter, aiming to contend for a medal. He was near a medal in Eugene two years in the past, the place he completed fourth.
Wodak wins in Winnipeg
In a loaded ladies’s championship discipline that includes 4 Olympians, Wodak emerged victorious, ending 13 seconds forward of Malindi Elmore to win her first nationwide title of 2024. “I stunned myself with an important race,” Wodak wrote on social media. “I didn’t assume I used to be going to win, so I’m very comfortable about that.”
Wodak talked about she got here down with a chilly the week earlier than the race, leaving her unsure about her efficiency. In a post-race interview with the Winnipeg Free Press, she stated the win was the increase she wanted after falling in need of qualifying for the Paris Olympics earlier this spring.
Elmore, who would be the solely Canadian lady competing within the Paris 2024 ladies’s marathon, secured second place in 1:13:09. Anne-Marie Comeau, a former Nordic skier for Workforce Canada from St-Ferréol-les-Neiges, Que., completed third in 1:15:20.
Like Levins, Elmore used the Canadian Half Marathon Championships as a preparation race for Paris. This shall be her third Olympic Video games. She first competed for Canada in Athens 2004 over 1,500m, then retired from skilled working in 2012. She made a comeback in 2019 and certified for the Tokyo 2020 Video games within the ladies’s marathon, the place she achieved a top-10 end.
For full outcomes from the Manitoba Marathon weekend, verify right here.
