6 New Balance athletes to watch at Canadian Olympic Trials

With the Canadian Olympic Track & Field Trials presented by Bell coming to Montreal from June 26 to 30, we’re looking mainly at the competitors who’ve been featured in our “Run Your Way” stories over the past year. They’ll be running their way—that is, in just over a week at Trials, and they’re all in the midst of final competition preparations. Get to know a few of the New Balance athletes competing next week, and how they’ll be channelling the concept of “Run Your Way.”

Charles Philibert-Thiboutot – 1,500m

“To me, ‘Run Your Way’ means run in the way that brings you the most joy,” says Philbert-Thiboutot. “I think it’s different for everyone. For some people it means health, it means getting out the door at the end of the day, getting some fresh air. For some of the people, like me, it means competing. I’m a serial competitor, and to me, running is really where I get this this boost of adrenaline and this competitiveness. Running can also be meeting up with your friends and going for a run with them. So I do think that ‘Run Your Way’ is something that is very singular and different for everyone. But for me, it is to get the best out of yourself, get competitive and see how good you can truly get.”

Micha Powell – 400m, 200m

“’Run Your Way,’ to me means having this realistic positivity,” Powell says. “I’m always able to look at things from this perspective that I have this opportunity to run. This is amazing. This is something that not many people get to do at this level. And I get to see what my body can do. Even if it’s a race that doesn’t go that well, I’m like, Yeah, but I walked in there and did what I could.”

(Check out Powell’s upcoming book, Sprinting Through Setbacks, here.)

Addy Townsend – 800m

“To me, ‘Run Your Way’ means focusing on your potential, focusing on your goals and focusing on yourself,” Townsend says. “I think with track being an individual sport, you really have to have those goals in your mind and try and just really focus on them. It’s so easy to get distracted and to compare yourself to different people, but if I can focus on my training and my support system, my goals and my day-to-day actions, then I can run my way.”

Jean-Simon Desgagnés – 3,000m steeplechase

With a recent steeplechase win at the LA Grand Prix and an eighth-place finish in the same event at last summer’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Desgagnés is a frontrunner to make the Olympic team at Trials. The New Balance athlete will be on the startline in the 1,500m, along with one of his friends and top competitors, fellow New Balance athlete Charles Philibert-Thiboutot. While he hasn’t answered the question of what Run Your Way means to him just yet, we can only assume his answer will be some variatio of “very, very fast.” 

Julie-Anne Staehli – 5,000m

“With everything else that has gone on in life, running has always been the one constant,” says Staehli. “As an athlete, you get to go to new places and work with new people, and often, the places you go and the teams you make are temporary. But what stays with you, I think, are the values you get from the sport, in terms of teamwork and the importance of living a healthy, active lifestyle.”

Read more about Staehli here.

Erin Teschuk – 5,000m

“To me, ‘Run Your Way’ means there’s no right or wrong way to be a runner,” says Teschuk. “So everyone comes at it with their own background, their own experiences, and it’s really about finding what lights your fire. What makes you passionate? It’s about knowing your why. For me, running your way just means I’m trying to figure out how good I can be. That’s really my purpose. It means showing up every day, knowing that if I want to find out how good I can be, I have to give it my all.”