Confident Canadian shows it’s her time
Watson’s national 400m hurdles record just the start of bigger things at worlds
If Sage Watson is to win a world championship medal on Friday in Qatar, she’ll probably need to lower the Canadian record she chased for years and will have owned for just 48 hours.
It’s the quintessential whathave-you-done-for-me-lately aspect of elite sport.
“To get it feels amazing. It’s just years and years of hard work put into one moment,” Watson said Wednesday after finishing her 400-metre hurdles semifinal in 54.32 seconds, breaking Rosey Edeh’s mark of 54.39, set way back in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics.
Watson’s record-breaking romp was the fourth-fastest time in the semis behind Americans Sydney McLaughlin (53.81) and Dalilah Muhammad (53.91), who set the world record of 52.20 in July, as well as Jamaican sensation Rushell Clayton (54.17).
Given those results, Watson was asked about her plan heading into the eight-woman final.
“The plan is to go for a medal,” said the 25-year-old from Medicine Hat, Alta.
She was then asked if she feels she is in medal shape.
“I do. Definitely.”
That’s the thing about Watson. She has transformed herself from a runner into an NCAA champ, a proven winner, a pro and now a national record holder. No doubts. No hesitation.
“Her mentality is one of a warrior,” Athletics Canada head coach Glenroy Gilbert said last spring. “She wants to compete, she wants to win and she basically brings the rest of the team along with her because of that desire.”
He was talking specifically about Watson’s impact on the Canadian women’s 4x400-metre relay team. She’s the de facto leader of that emerging squad, in part because of that take-no-prisoners attitude.
“The fact that she’s also world class in her hurdles event helps to build confidence on the other side,” Gilbert added.
Watson exudes confidence, but it is not misplaced. She has put in the work on and off the track, paid her dues, rehabbed from injuries, outlasted poor performances and celebrated a string of victories with grace.
She’s a serious, committed athlete who does not take any aspect of the job lightly, including the potential impact she can have on Canadian girls and women who might be thinking of an athletic career. She wants to be their role model.
In a thoughtful post that is currently featured on the International Association of Athletics Federations website, entitled “Know Your Why,” Watson discusses the body image issues she had as a “skinny blond girl from Canada” who was self-conscious in junior high and high school and couldn’t find an appropriate role model for the longest time.
“So many people spend so much time disliking their body and any apparent imperfections. It’s understandable, but then you think: why would I hate on my body? This body made me become an Olympian, this body made me become a professional athlete so I want to say to girls: don’t hate your body because you don’t know yet what it’s capable of.”
Watson proved again on Wednesday that she is capable of running with the fastest women in her event. It was something she foreshadowed in that blog post, published Sept. 11.
“As I struggled with injury the last two years I reminded myself of the NCAA Championships in 2017, one of my biggest victories. I also thought back to the World Championships in 2017 and, yeah at times I started to wonder if I’d ever get back to that stage again. But now I’m ready to do just that.”
She finished sixth in the final at the 2017 worlds and wanted so much more. She was fifth at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and wasn’t satisfied. Even when she won the Pan Am Games this summer in Peru, her eyes were on Doha.
It’s time. There are no guarantees she will be better than she was at the 2017 worlds, but she’s running faster than she was two years ago, she is far more experienced, and above all she will take the right attitude with her to the start line. No doubts. No hesitation.
“I love seeing our sport grow and I love that it’s the 400 hurdles that’s helping to drive it,” she wrote. “I also love that the world record was broken this year by Dalilah Muhammad. When I see my competitors run fast, that only steps up my game. It doesn’t intimidate me, it just makes me think I’ve got to train harder, to get on top of everything, so I can race with these girls.
“On top of all the other reasons I’m in this sport, that’s my why.”