Marathoner Malindi Elmore to challenge rising stars for national XC title in Ottawa

It’s been 17 years since Canada’s second-fastest marathoner, Malindi Elmore, competed in (and won) her last Canadian Cross Country Championships, and on Saturday, the 43-year-old marathoner will return to the discipline, beginning her preparations for the 2024 Olympic marathon in Paris.

In 2006, six months before the release of the first Apple iPhone, Elmore scored a dominant win in the women’s championship 6K, finishing 25 seconds ahead of Megan Brown from Guelph, Ont. At the time, Elmore was coming off an eighth-place finish at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in the 1,500m and her first Olympic Games, in Athens.

Although Elmore’s career and preferred distance have changed since 2006, she will test her speed and strength at Mooney’s Bay in the nation’s capital on Saturday against the best up-and-coming female distance runners in Canada. Elmore’s decision to run ACXC this year aligns with her already secured ticket to the Paris Olympic marathon, which is expected to be the hilliest Olympic marathon in history, with more than 400m of elevation gain throughout the 42.2 kilometres.

With defending champion Julie-Anne Staehli not returning to Ottawa to defend her national XC title, there will be a new champion crowned. Another athlete to watch is Ceili McCabe of Vancouver, who had an outstanding university cross country career at the University of West Virginia, earning NCAA All-American honours twice and winning the 2021 Nuttycombe Invitational, which is often regarded as one of the top meets of the NCAA XC season.

McCabe, a recent Canadian world championships team member in the 3,000m steeplechase, will face stiff competition, especially from top returning finisher Katelyn Ayers of Victoria. Also in contention are previous Canadian U Sports cross country champions Katie Newlove and Glynis Sim, both representing the Vancouver Thunderbirds. Sim is coming into these championships off a successful fall season where she placed second at the Vancouver Eastside 10K and 12th in the road mile at the 2023 World Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia in early October.

A dark horse podium pick for Saturday is Kiana Gibson, also with the Vancouver Thunderbirds, who is coming into nationals off a top-five finish at the 2023 Pan-American Games in the 3,000m steeplechase. With an impressive university XC career and multiple U Sports medals with Guelph and UBC, Gibson could be a surprise top-three finisher.

University of British Columbia soars to double gold at 2023 U Sports XC Championships

Team category

Everyone loves a tightly contested team competition at nationals, but this year in the women’s race, we are unlikely to get that. The Vancouver Thunderbirds are loaded with talent, with Leslie Sexton, Gibson, former university champs Sim and Newlove, plus several other women from their 2023 U Sports national championship team, making them a force to be reckoned with. It would take a miracle for them to be upset here in Ottawa, especially considering the depth of their top four contributing scores. I would not be surprised if the Vancouver Thunderbirds placed five athletes in the top 10 and set an Athletics Canada record for the lowest women’s team score at a Canadian XC Championship.

CAUL (Club D’Athletisme de L’Universite Laval) also has a solid team, led by steeplechaser Jessy Lacourse and 2023 U Sports team silver medallist Jade Bérubé. CAUL will battle it out with Toronto’s Monarch Athletics Club, led by Becca Brennan and Laura Desjardins, for silver and bronze. In 2022, CAUL had a slight edge over Monarch for the silver.