A SWEEP IN SPRINTS
At track and field championship
A night after Aaron Brown captured a thrilling men’s 100 metre title, the 200-metre final had plenty of drama as well but for all the wrong reasons.
Brown won the 200 to complete the short sprints sweep at the Canadian track and field championships on Saturday, but the field was missing Andre De Grasse because of a hamstring injury and Gavin Smellie to a late false start call.
“I had to run against who’s in the field, and that’s exactly what I did,” Brown of Toronto, said. “I literally won by a nose on (Friday) night in the 100. I had a pretty comfortable win in the 200 and I’m pleased with it. I can build off this.”
Brown, who had won the 100m final by a thousandth of a second the previous night, led from the gun to capture the 200m crown, his fourth Canadian senior title, in 20.17 seconds.
Jerome Blake of Kelowna, B.C., was second in 20.38.
De Grasse, the Canadian recordholder in the 200, finished third in the 100 before pulling up with a hamstring injury in his 200 semifinal on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Crystal Emmanuel won the women’s 200 a day after winning the 100, and as always, entertained the crowd with a celebratory scream after crossing the line. The 26-year-old from Toronto finished in 22.74 seconds.
Shawn Barber, the 2015 world champion, cleared a championship record 5.75 metres to win the pole vault.
In other finals, Johnathan Cabral won the men’s 110 hurdles, Aiyanna Stiverne won the women’s 400, Joshua Cunningham won the men’s 400, Liz Gleadle won the women’s javelin, Evan Karakolis won the men’s javelin, and Caroline Ehrhardt won the women’s triple jump.
Marco Arop was a star-struck 17-year-old watching the men’s 800-metre final at the Canadian track and field championships in 2016.
“I remember a friend of mine saying, ‘That’s Brandon McBride, he just placed second at NCAAs,’ and I thought, ‘It’s going to be awhile until I can be at his level,’ ” Arop said. “And here I am. It’s crazy.”
Sunday, McBride and the rest of the men’s 800m field watched Arop from behind as the 19-yearold from Edmonton fearlessly led wire to wire to win the Canadian title in his senior debut.
And in a Canadian championship missing some of its top stars, Arop became one.
“Everything is going right for me right now,” Arop said.
The six-foot-four Arop dabbled in track in elementary school and junior high, but hitched his college dreams to a basketball scholarship until the track coach at Blessed Oscar Romero High School convinced him — finally — to run track in his Grade 12 year.
He then delayed college for a year to work with coach Ron Thompson at Edmonton’s Voleo Athletic Club. And last month, in his freshman season for Mississippi State, he raced to a surprise silver medal at the NCAA championships, crossing in a fast 1:45.25.
Arop dominated Sunday’s race, winning in 1:46.15, ahead of a closing McBride, who was second in 1:46.42.
“It’s a feeling that I can’t even explain,” Arop said of running in the lead. “I was so afraid of Brandon, I thought he was going to out-kick me with 200 to go, and that just encouraged me to kick even harder.”
Arop was born in Khartoum, Sudan. The civil war forced his parents to flee to Khartoum from their home in Abyei. The family immigrated to Egypt when Arop was two, and eventually to Saskatoon. The family of eight — Arop has five brothers — finally settled in Edmonton.
Arop’s victory on Sunday clinched his spot in next month’s NACAC championships — for athletes from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He and McBride could give Canada a forceful 1-2 punch in next year’s world championships and the 2020 Olympics.
“It really motivates me,” the 24-year-old McBride said of Arop. “I’m just happy that there’s a few of us out there now who are running around (Olympic and world qualifying ) standard. Hopefully we can have a full roster of 800 runners going to the Olympics and the world championships.”
In the last decade, Gabriela Stafford has found solace while out on long runs. And when pre-race nerves threaten to derail her, she finds strength in thinking of her mom.
The 22-year-old from Toronto raced to her third 1,500-metre title on Sunday, and in the moments before she stepped to the start line alongside her younger sister Lucia, she said a little prayer for her mom.
“A lot of runners, in their moments of anxiety leading into a race, will fall on something, and for some people that’s God and prayer,” Stafford said.
“I’m not the most religious person, but I’m definitely a very spiritual person, and in those moments of doubt and hurt and worry before the race, I always think of my mom and say a little prayer to her, to give me strength.”
Lucia finished ninth.
The Staffords’ mom, Maria Luisa Gardner, died of leukemia when Gabriela was 13 and Lucia just 10. Saturday was the 10-year anniversary of her death.
Brittany Crew, the 24-year-old from Toronto who made history last summer as the first Canadian woman to throw in a world shot put final — she finished sixth — added another national title to her resume. Crew ’s winning throw was 18.27 metres.