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Why the 2022 World Championships was a success for Team Canada

Although the team finished with fewer medals than three years ago in Doha, Canada had 14 athletes achieve top-eight finishes

World Athletics Championships Eugene, Oregon, USA July15-26, 2022 Photo by: Kevin Morris

The expectations for Team Canada going into the 2022 World Championships were high with the team coming off their most successful Olympic performance in Tokyo, where Canada racked up six medals in athletics (two gold, two silver and two bronze), the most for the country in a non-boycotted Olympics Games.

Canada’s Andre De Grasse celebrates winning the 4x100m gold. Photo: Kevin Morris

Although Team Cawas were missing some notable athletes due to injury (who made Olympic finals previously) in Eugene, they came out with four medals (one gold, two silver and one bronze). More importantly, Canada finished seventh overall in the team standings with 63 placing points, only behind Team USA, Ethiopia, Kenya, Team GB, Jamaica and China. Canada finished ninth overall with only 55 points three years ago in Doha.

The points table is a team ranking system commonly used in athletics, which consists of assigning points to each athlete (the top eight finishers) based on their overall final placing. The top eight finalists in each event score points, with eight points going to the gold medalists down to one point for each 8th place finisher. Non-finalists and disqualified athletes recieve zero points.

Marco Arop won his first major championship medal in the men’s 800m. Photo: Kevin Morris

Canada’s medals in Tokyo came from likely protagonists, who were among the favourites going in. In Eugene, we got to experience breakthrough performances from up-and-coming Canadian athletes Marco Arop and Pierce LePage, who both locked up their first world championship medal. Camryn Rogers made Canadian history, claiming Canada’s first world championship medal in a women’s field event, winning silver in the hammer throw.

But what everyone did not expect was the upset of the Canadian men’s 4x100m relay team to win gold on U.S. soil. Something the Canadian men’s 4x100m relay team hasn’t accomplished since 1997.

Camryn Rogers at 2022 World Championships
Camryn Rogers won the first medal for Team Canada at the 2022 World Championships in the hammer throw. Photo: Claus Anderson/AC

With Canadian athletes like Damian Warner, Gabriela DeBues-Stafford, Sage Watson, Genevieve Lalonde and Andrea Seccafien unable to compete, many athletes stepped up in their absence. Sarah Mitton finished fourth in the women’s shot put after not making it out of qualifying in Tokyo, and Cam Levins rewrote history, finishing fourth and breaking his Canadian marathon record by two minutes after finishing 72nd of 76 at the 2020 Olympics. Aaron Brown made two individual world championship finals, placing eighth in the 100m and seventh in the 200m, respectively.

We are only 12 months away from another world championship and an Olympics the year after, where Team Canada will undoubtedly have one of their best performances to date.

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