Cam Levins shatters Canadian half-marathon record at Vancouver’s First Half
Cam Levins does it again, clocking a 60-minute half marathon in Vancouver to break the Canadian record
Photo by:
Kevin Morris
It is not often that you see a national record broken on Canadian soil, but at the Vancouver First Half on Sunday morning, Cam Levins added another Canadian record to his resume, becoming the first Canadian to break the 61-minute barrier over the half-marathon, winning the race in 60:18.
🚨Canadian record alert!! 🚨
Cam Levins (@CamLevins) smashes the Canadian half-marathon record this morning on 🇨🇦 soil at the @VanFirstHalf
60:18 🤯
42 seconds off the previous Canadian record of 61:00! WOW! pic.twitter.com/jWK1quMJsQ
— Canadian Running (@CanadianRunning) February 12, 2023
Levins ran solo most of the race, winning by four minutes over Lee Wesselius, Thomas Broatch and 2022 Canadian marathon champion Trevor Hofbauer. Wesselius was second in a personal best time of 64:17, while Broatch bested Hofbauer for third in 64:23.
Levins’s time took 42 seconds off the previous record of 61:00, set by Ben Flanagan at the Valencia Half Marathon in October 2022. Levins was also in Valencia when Flanagan set the record, finishing only five seconds behind him.
It is safe to say the 33-year-old has success racing on the west coast—his marathon record time of 2:07:09 at the 2022 World Athletics Championship in Oregon was the fastest time by a North American marathoner last year.
Levins chose to run The First Half in preparation for the 2023 Tokyo Marathon on March 5, where he will be one of the headliners alongside 2022 Amsterdam Marathon champion Tsegay Getachew (ETH), 2021 London Marathon champion Sisay Lemma (ETH) and his former training partner and Japanese 5,000m (and formerly, marathon) record holder, Suguru Osako.
In the women’s half, women’s marathon record holder Natasha Wodak continued her string of solid performances, taking the win for the second straight year in 1:10:16 over Leslie Sexton and Sasha Gollish. Wodak’s time broke her previous course record of 1:11:32 and was only 35 seconds off her PB of 69:41 from the 2020 Houston Half Marathon.
Sexton ran a personal best time of 1:11:40 for second, taking 25 seconds off her previous best. Gollish finished third in 1:12:5o ahead of Vancouver’s Samantha Jory.
You can view the full results from the 2023 Vancouver First Half here.
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