Canadians continue to chase Olympic standards in Victoria

The march towards a guaranteed spot on the Canadian Olympic team continues for our track athletes this Wednesday in Victoria.

The National Track League series brings it’s traveling roadshow from Burnaby, where the Harry Jerome meet was held on Saturday, to the Victoria International meet.

The marquee match-ups to watch for will be the women’s 800m and the men’s 800m and 1500m races.

Smith, Bishop and Cummins to duel it out in 800m, Stellingwerff to run 800m as a tune-up

On the women’s side, the 800m will feature three athletes that are surely bound for London. Speed River track club’s Hilary Stellingwerff ran the “A” standard at a meet in Rome in May in the 1500m, will square off in the shorter distance in Victoria. In the 800m Stellingwerff has run 2:02.20, well off the 1:59.90 “A” standard. Since gaining the “A” standard in the 1500m, Stellingwerff decided to enter the 800m in order to work on her speed and finishing kick in advance of the trials and the Olympics themselves.

Fresh off her thrilling win at Harry Jerome where she became just the fourth Canadian woman to break the two-minute barrier in 1:59.86, Jessica Smith of North Vancouver will look to continue her winning ways in Victoria. All she must do now is continue to build confidence and then place in the top three at the trials in Calgary later in June in order to punch her ticket to London.

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Ottawa Lion track club member Melissa Bishop will also line up in the 800m on Wednesday. She also has run the coveted “A” standard and only needs now to continue putting together quality races in advance of her quest to solidify a spot on the Olympic team in Calgary. Bishop should be running in fine form, having run a stellar race at the Prefontaine Classic in May, where she finished strong and dipped under the “A” standard with a 1:59.82. Bishop also ran at Harry Jerome, clocking in at a respectable 2:00.45.

Looking to take back the glory that she owned for years in the 800m, veteran Canadian Diane Cummins will race against the group of up-and-comers in an attempt to secure herself an “A” standard. Cummins, who has held the Canadian women’s 800m record since 2001 (1:58.39), will try to improve her year’s best time of 2:01.11 and dip under the 2-minute mark to challenge for a spot on the Olympic team.

Men’s 1500m heating up

Nate Brannen and Taylor Milne would both like a big day at the Victoria International meet.

Brannen has hovered around the “A” standard all season. He won the Oxy High Performance meet on May 18, but just missed the standard with a 3:35.88. He then packed his bags for Europe and quickly secured the standard at Hengelo a week later with a carefully executed 3:34.22, where he placed 8th but ran a strategically sound race in order to solidify the olympic qualifying time in advance of the trials.

Most recently, Brannen ran a smooth race in New York at the Adidas Grand Prix, placing a respectable fourth with a 3:35.78. All he must do now is continue to build successes and then run a top 3 finish in Calgary.

Taylor Milne, who represented Canada in Beijing, is searching for the elusive “A” standard in order to take the pressure off going into the trials. He’s run well this year, but he has not been able to put together a race fast enough to get into the 3:35 range. At the Harry Jerome meet he ran in front for much of the race, but then fell back in the final lap and finished with a disappointing 3:43. He seemed to pack it in prior to the finish. The Victoria race on Wednesday will be perhaps the most important race of Milne’s year, as he will not want to leave getting under the standard until the trials.

Men’s 800m: a last-minute race for Harris and Ellerton

In the men’s 800m, both Geoff Harris and Andrew Ellerton will go up against some speedy American competition in order to see if they can both push their times under the “A” standard of 1:45.60. Harris has been cruising along, putting in quality races that have shown steady improvement. He’s now achieved one race at the “B” standard, having run a 1:46.29 at Harry Jerome. It was the fourth race in a row that Harris has improved his personal best time. Harris will either need to make the “A” standard in Victoria and then place within the top three at the trials, or gain another “B” standard, place top 3 at Trials, and hope that Ellerton doesn’t get two “B” standards. According to IAAF rules, if a country is sending multiple athletes in an event, they must all have the “A” standard.

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Ellerton yet again finds himself in a familiar situation: chasing a standard with mere weeks to go. In both 2004 and 2008 Ellerton narrowly missed qualifying for the Olympics, running a string of 1:46’s in the process. He ran a PB 1:45.05 in 2011 (an “A+” standard), but needs to find himself under the “B” standard twice, in order to solidify his first trip to the Olympics. He ran a disappointing 1:47.77 at Harry Jerome.

The Victoria International meet takes place Wednesday, June 13, 6-9 p.m. Pacific. It can be streamed live at flotrack.org.