Ottawa doubles 10K prize purse for Canadians, drops Gold Label status

The race is focussed on attracting the deepest field of fast Canadians this year

Anne Francis February 3, 2020

On Saturday, May 23, 2020 at 6:30 p.m., Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend will once again play host to the Canadian 10K Championships, and this year’s top finishers will take home twice as much money as they did last year–a total of $35,000, which may be the largest prize purse for any Canadian championship in 2020, and will be a big draw for Canada’s fastest runners.

Dylan Wykes, last year’s Canadian 10K champion along with Natasha Wodak, is also Run Ottawa’s new Elite Athlete Co-ordinator, and he has big plans to make this year “epic”: “It’ll be a great opportunity to assemble as many of the best Canadian distance runners as possible,” he says.

The 10K, which welcomed more than 8,000 runners in 2019, has made some other significant changes in a shift towards making the whole experience better for Canadian athletes both elite and recreational, including a decision not to renew its World Athletics Gold Label certification (a distinction retained by the Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon). Race organizers say that dropping the Gold Label status frees up resources that are better used towards improving the 10K race experience for Canadians.

Canadian 10K Championships winners will each earn $6,000, with prize money for everyone down to 10th place male and female elite Canadian athletes who are members of Athletics Canada.

The overall 10K winner (who may well be female, thanks to the race’s unique gender challenge, which gives the elite women a head start) gets an extra $2,000. And the top team in the Canuck 10K Team Competition gets $6,000 split evenly among team members, plus $1,000 to go to a Scotiabank Charity Challenge-participating charity of their choice.

Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend takes place this year on May 23 and 24. For more information on the Ottawa 10K and to register, click here. For more information on prize money, click here.

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