5 Canadian records we think will be broken in 2024

Last year was one of the most successful years for Canadian athletes. Canada won a record five gold medals at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest–the highest tally at a world championship to date–and 15 Canadian records were broken on the roads and the track (indoor and outdoor).

The 2024 athletics schedule is a busy one, with World Indoors, World Cross and the Olympic Games in the same calendar year. Will athletes come close to the 15 national records broken last year? Here are five records we think will go down this year.

Women’s 400mH

Sage Watson’s Canadian 400m hurdles record of 54.32 seconds will likely be broken in 2024. The reigning NCAA 400mH champion, Savannah Sutherland, came close to breaking it in 2023, running a personal best of 54.45 seconds at the 2023 NCAA Championships. Sutherland also got the opportunity to represent Canada for the first time at a senior level at the 2023 World Championships, where she reached the semi-final in the women’s 400mH.

At only 20, Sutherland is one of Canada’s top rising stars in the sport, and she is only getting faster.

Women’s 3,000m steeplechase

After watching Vancouver’s Ceili McCabe dominate the 2023 Canadian XC Championships, winning her first Canadian senior XC title, it was clear that she was blossoming into her potential. It will only be a matter of time until she smashes the Canadian 3,000m steeplechase record of 9:22.40 held by Genevieve Lalonde. McCabe is currently ranked 34th in the world in the event and holds a personal best of 9:25.98, only three seconds off the record.

The 22-year-old already has some national team experience, representing Canada at two world championships (Eugene 2022 and Budapest 2023). She just missed out on the women’s 3,000m steeplechase final in Budapest, finishing sixth in the heats, with only the top five advancing. It’s only logical that she will make that leap this season.

Men’s 100m

This is an extremely hot take, and I know many will disagree. Andre De Grasse wants nothing more than the Canadian 100m record (except maybe a few more gold medals). He has run under 9.84 on several occasions, but all the performances have been wind-aided. With De Grasse in the last year of his 20s, is this the year we finally see him break through and shatter Donovan Bailey and Bruny Surin’s Canadian record of 9.84 seconds?

Bailey and Surin’s mark has now stood for more than two decades, and if De Grasse can add the prestigious title of Canada’s fastest man to his resume, he would solidify himself as Canada’s greatest sprinter. Although De Grasse’s fastest legal mark is 9.89 seconds from the Tokyo Olympic 100m final in 2021, and he concluded his 2023 season with his fastest performance since nearly the last Olympics. If there is a time for De Grasse to challenge the record in his career, it is now.

Men’s half-marathon

There was much speculation whether we would see Cam Levins’s Canadian half-marathon mark of 60:18 broken at last weekend’s Houston Half Marathon, but with the pre-race dropout of Moh Ahmed due to injury, who was expected to make his half-marathon debut, combined with the cold and windy conditions in Houston, Levins’s record survived another day.

With how fast the world’s best distance athletes are currently running, this record will be broken this year, and it’s just a matter of when. When Levins originally set the record at the Vancouver First Half, it was a very wet and windy day in the middle of February. Although Levins was absolutely in record fitness, if he ran that race again on the same day, he would have broken one hour (solo). We are not saying that 60 minutes and 18 seconds isn’t fast, but with the incredible depth in Canadian men’s distance running right now, it’s only a matter of time until Ahmed, Ben Flanagan, Rory Linkletter, or even Levins himself lowers it even further.

Women’s marathon

There are a lot of marathons on the calendar this year, and our Canadian ladies are only getting faster. Natasha Wodak’s record mark of 2:23:12 has stood since the Berlin Marathon in 2022, but the previous record holder, Malindi Elmore, came close to it at the same race in 2023, running 2:23:30.

Rumour has it that several Canadian Olympians from 5,000m and 10,000m are moving up to the marathon distance in 2024. So Wodak’s mark will be challenged. One of those athletes is 10,000m Olympic finalist Andrea Seccafien, who currently holds the Canadian half-marathon record of 69:38. Seccafien is scheduled to make her debut at the 2024 Tokyo Marathon on March 3, and says her goal is to earn Olympic qualification or 2:26:50—a mark only two Canadian women have ever surpassed.

With two women’s spots still open on the Canadian Olympic team in Paris, it will only be a matter of time until we see a female Canadian marathoner throw down a breakthrough performance.