Bishop worries about race, not result
Canadian hopes to recover from Rio disappointment in 800 metres at the worlds
OTTAWA— Melissa Bishop raced two laps at the Canadian track and field championships with something she doesn’t normally see — empty track ahead of her.
The Canadian field offered no challenge to Bishop, making the 800-metre final an easy run of two minutes. Things get much harder for her from here on in.
Bishop heads to the world championships in London next month to race much the same field that she faced at last summer’s Rio Olympics, where she finished just off the podium.
She had great position on the track and was sitting third behind the South African winner Caster Semenya and Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba until the final 50 metres, when Kenya’s Margaret Wambui came up on the outside and passed her just before the line.
For a runner who set the Canadian record at the 2015 world championships on her way to winning a silver medal, it was hard to accept that she could run even faster — lowering her national record in Rio — and yet come away without a medal. Elite athletes just don’t imagine fourthplace finishes.
“It was hard this fall,” Bishop said, of finding the motivation to start a new season. “We trained for so many years for one race on that day and I think I performed at my best . . . that was probably the best that I’ve ever run.”
Those three Olympic medallists have continued to dominate podiums and Semenya — who has unwittingly become the face of controversy around gender-testing rules and a medical condition where women’s bodies produce higher than normal levels of testosterone — is unbeaten in years.
The controversy around her event is not something Bishop ever weighs in on, saying she only worries about what she can control and, right now, that’s all about making herself faster.
“I ran . . . a textbook perfect race in Rio, so if I can redo that then I’m on top.”
Bishop, from nearby Eganville, Ont., had a cheering section at Terry Fox Stadium that rivalled that of sprint sensation Andre De Grasse.
Earlier in the day, De Grasse won his 200-metre semifinal to advance to Sunday’s final. But it was Aaron
“We trained for so many years for one race . . . that was probably the best I’ve ever run.” MELISSA BISHOP ON HER OLYMPIC DISAPPOINTMENT
Brown who set the fastest time of the day in another heat, and he has the most riding on Sunday’s final.
Along with De Grasse, he is the only Canadian to run under 10 seconds in the 100-metre sprint since the 1990s and yet he was disqualified in Friday’s final because of a false start. That leaves him off the Canadian team for that event at the world championships in London.
The IAAF, track and field’s world governing body, implemented a zero tolerance policy for false starts in 2010 and to false start in an event with so much on the line is a fear that all athletes have to live with now. Brown’s done it before, he said. “When I was younger, a lot younger and you’d think I’d get it out of my system by now,” he said. “But things happen like that and (Friday) just wasn’t my day.
“But as a competitor, as someone who works very hard and is trying to be an example for those who are younger watching me, I can’t hang my head.”
He certainly didn’t do that, coming out Saturday with a season’s best of 20.31 in the 200 semifinal, even though he made sure to keep his feet glued to the starting blocks.
“I was sitting in there (thinking) I’m not going anywhere until I know,” he said. “Even though I was cautious, I got out pretty well. I just have to do the same thing (Sunday), be professional. Everybody has to deal with the gun.”
Toronto’s Crystal Emmanuel advanced easily to the 200-metre final and is the only Canadian woman to have a world-qualifying standard in either the 100 or 200.