The state of the Canadian Olympic team
Who's in, who's qualified, and who's on the bubble with Canadian Olympian Evan Dunfee
With just over two months to go before the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, the outdoor track season is ramping up and Canadian athletes are scrambling to get into races to try and run qualifying times or get enough points to be within the rankings quotas. As we head into another action-packed weekend of racing, Canadian Olympic race walker Evan Dunfee has laid out which of our athletes are in, and which ones are on the bubble of qualifying.
Canadian Road To Tokyo Rankings June 2nd. pic.twitter.com/pgO8wP1ITH
— Evan Dunfee (@EvanDunfee) June 2, 2021
The men
On the men’s side, there are currently five athletes who have been officially selected to the team — Dunfee and Mathieu Bilodeau in the 50K race walk, Trevor Hofbauer, Cam Levins, and Ben Preisner in the marathon, and Mohammed Ahmed in the 10,000m. Ten other athletes have achieved the Olympic standard in their event, which means they are eligible to be selected to the team, and several more are within the quota on the World Athletics rankings.
The women
On the women’s side, Dayna Pidhoresky, Malindi Elmore, and Natasha Wodak have been named to the marathon team, while Andrea Seccafien has also been nominated in the 10,000m. Fifteen other athletes have achieved standard in their respective events, as well as several who are within the rankings and so still have a shot. The only result missing from this list is Natalia Hawthorn’s 4:04.20 1,500m, in which she tied the Olympic standard at the Stumptown Twilight on Thursday night. It is also worth noting that for the women’s 5,000m and the marathon, there are more than three athletes who have run qualifying times. Unfortunately, each country is only allowed to send three athletes per gender per event, which means that there will be some deserving athletes who will be left off the team.
And the overall picture:
It’ll now take standard to qualify in the women’s 5,000m. pic.twitter.com/omgtNrAL6R— Evan Dunfee (@EvanDunfee) June 2, 2021
The coming weeks
Particularly for the athletes who are “on the cusp,” the next few weeks of competition will be critical if they hope to secure a spot on the team. As promised in his Twitter thread, Dunfee has said he will attempt to keep his charts updated over the coming weeks, so keep your eye on his feed to stay up-to-date with the state of our Olympic team.
RELATED: The rundown: Evan Dunfee on the inherent inequality of Olympic qualification
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