Cool Canadian running facts

1) The 1928 Olympics were the first in which female athletes were admitted. The Canadian women’s 4x100m relay team of Grace Conacher, Bobbie Rosenfeld, Myrtle Cook and Rosa Gross were the very first female gold medallists in the event.

2) A Canadian man has won the Boston Marathon 16 times.

3) A Canadian woman has won the Boston Marathon once.

4) Gerard Cote of St. Hyacinthe, Que. won the Boston Marathon four times, in 1940, 1943, 1944 and 1948.

5) It often goes overlooked that third place in the ‘miracle mile’ after Britain’s Roger Bannister and Australia’s John Landy, was Richard Ferguson of Toronto.

6) The Canadian record holder in the marathon is Jerome Drayton, who ran 2:10:29 at the Fukuoka Marathon in 1976.

7) The female record holder in the marathon is Lanni Marchant, who ran 2:28:00 in 2013.

8) The record holder in the 10,000m is Simon Bairu, who ran 27:23.63 in 2010.

9) Perhaps Canada’s most beloved runner in history, Terry Fox, ran from St. John’s, N.L., to Thunder Bay, Ont. a distance of more than 5,000 kilometres, in 143 days. Fox was forced to end his Marathon of Hope due to lung cancer. Fox’s goal was to raise one dollar for every Canadian (at the time, 24 million). The Terry Fox Foundation announced in May that over 650 million has been raised in Terry’s name to date.

10) There are 14 schools and 15 roads in Canada that are named after Terry Fox.

11) Canada has the sixth most sub 4-minute milers in the world.

12) The number of Canadians that have a run sub-4-minute mile more than once is 15.

13) The world record holder in the beer mile is Canadian James Neilson, with a time of 4:57.1.