Emmanuel’s chance to shine
Sprinter wants to spotlight Canadian women
LONDON— Canada’s best performing sprinter here at the athletics world championships isn’t who most Canadians expected it would be. But Crystal Emmanuel is more than happy to step into the void.
The 25-year-old from Toronto likes to call herself “a beast” — and she does let out a primal scream that’s something to behold when she wins an important race — but she’s also quick to laugh and designs her own Canadian-themed socks to wear in competition.
Canada’s top male sprinter, Andre De Grasse, who pulled out with a hamstring injury, has a multi-million dollar shoe contract with Puma; our top female sprinter has a sock sponsor with Yo Sox.
Overshadowed in recent years by men’s sprinting, Emmanuel is hoping to draw Canadian women’s sprinting back into the light by making the most of her appearance here. And, so far, it’s working.
She set a personal best in the 100 heats on Saturday and, on Thursday, she hopes to advance out of the semifinal in the 200, her best event.
“I want to be an inspiration to all sprinters,” she after her first race here. “I (want) the women and girls coming up to see me out here competing with the best in the world, and putting Canada back in the mix of things. I just want to empower a lot of women and girls coming up, so I’m going to do that.” Born in Toronto, Emmanuel moved back to Barbados with family when she was a child and didn’t return to the city until she was 17. It wasn’t long before she burst onto the Canadian track scene.
She’s been top two in Canada in both the 100 and 200 since she was19 and competed in the last two Olympics. But it’s been more recently that she’s really started to achieve results on the international stage.
Ask her what’s changed and she’s forth- right. It’s her mindset as much as her training.
“I was really up and down with being confident and positive in my races, going in scared and running just to run,” she said recently. “Now, I come out positive, confident, knowing that I can execute point A to B and be amazing.”
In June at the Diamond League race in Stockholm, running out of lane two making for a tight corner, she raced to a silver medal, just 0.01 off the gold, and set a new personal best.
“If she had another lane, it would have been pretty impressive. It was impressive nonetheless, but it would have been much faster,” Athletics Canada’s head coach Glenroy Gilbert said, recalling that race weeks later. He was right. In July, at Canadian nationals she ran even faster winning both the 100 and 200 titles and less than two weeks later took down one of Canada’s longest standing track records.
At a 200-metre race in Ireland she ran 22.50 seconds to break the Canadian women’s record of 22.62 set by Marita Payne, the mother of NBA star Andrew Wiggins in 1983, long before Emmanuel was even born.
Emmanuel is far from a medal favourite here in the 200 with the likes Bahamian Shaunae Miller-Uibo and world champion Dafne Schippers having dipped under the 22-second mark and Marie-Josee Ta Lou from the Ivory Coast and American champion Deajah Stevens all running well.
But Emmanuel is running well, and her best this year makes her the sixth fastest of the runners in the three semifinal heats, so getting one of the eight lanes in the final isn’t out of reach.
And, besides, Emmanuel is done doubting herself.
She still remembers making the semifinal at the 2012 London Olympics and thinking about the times of the runners in the lanes beside her.
“At that race, I doubted myself and I was like I’m not going to make it to the finals cause these girls are way faster than you and my Olympics was done,” she said.
Here, she’s taking it step-by-step knowing that in a race anything can happen.
“Go strong and the outcome will come,” she said.
Toronto’s Brittany Crew has already had her strong outcome, finishing sixth Wednesday night in women’s shot put, which marks the first time a Canadian woman has ever made the world championship final.
And several other Canadians have run themselves into upcoming finals including:
Sage Watson, the 23-year-old from Medicine Hat, Alta., runs the final of the 400-metre hurdles Thursday.
Genevieve Lalonde, the-25-yearold from Moncton, NB, advanced to Friday’s 3,000-metre steeplechase finals in a season’s best time.
St. Catharines’ Mohammed Ahmed, 26, and Toronto’s Justyn Knight, 21, both advanced to Sunday’s 5,000-metres final.