Canadian Natasha Yaremczuk dominates in Iceland

Two Canadians threw down in Iceland on Saturday morning.

Natasha Yaremczuk produced the ninth-best time in the history of the Reykjavik Marathon winning in 2:53:25. She won by almost 15 minutes. A former world-class triathlete for Canada – she competed at the Pan American Games and Commonwealth Games – the Paris, Ont. native continued the streak of Canadian wins in the Icelandic capital. David Le Porho won the men’s marathon in 2016.

Yaremczuk, who split 1:25:18 through the halfway point of the marathon, was joined by another Canadian on the podium in the country’s largest city of 123,000 residents.

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Victoria’s Jim Finlayson challenged for the win at the Reykjavik Half-Marathon. Finlayson’s second-place time of 1:09:18 was 10 seconds back of winner, and local, Hlynur Andrésson.

The time betters the current Canadian M45-49 half-marathon best previously held by Frank Lewis back in 1993. Steve Boyd holds the all-conditions M45-49 record at 1:08:40 but Canadian Masters Athletics lists the Niagara Falls point-to-point course as ineligible for Canadian masters road racing bests, according to their records regulations.

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On Saturday, Finlayson trailed Andrésson by 28 seconds at the 5K mark before closing the gap to 14 seconds at the 10K point. His fastest kilometre split, according to his Strava, was 3:09, which he did before the halfway point of the race.

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Finlayson was previously in London for the Beer Mile World Classic, which took place last Saturday, the penultimate day of the IAAF World Championships. The beer two-mile world record holder – he has run eight-and-change laps of a 400m track and consumed eight beers in less than 12 minutes – finished fourth overall in first of the year’s two beer mile global championships running 5:11.27.