Rachel Cliff runs big PB over 10,000m to hit world qualifying standard

The Vancouver resident joins Lanni Marchant and Natasha Wodak as Canadians who have achieved the 10,000m standard for the world championships

Rachel Cliff

Improving her personal best by nearly 15 seconds, Rachel Cliff secured a qualifying mark for the 2017 IAAF World Championships.

The Canadian 10K road champion ran 32:07.94 for 10,000m at the Portland (Ore.) Track Festival on Saturday night, below the 32:15 standard for London 2017. The 29-year-old B.C. Endurance Project member’s previous best was 32:21.98, according to the IAAF, set at the same event in 2016.

Sasha Gollish, the 2015 Pan Am Games bronze medallist in the 1,500m, paced Cliff, and Shalane Flanagan, through the first 13:30 of the race before stepping off the track. Gollish is expected to race the 1,500m on Sunday, the second of the two-day Portland Track Festival, an annual high-performance meet at Lewis & Clark College.

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“Last night’s race still sinking in, but pretty happy with my new PB of 32:07.94 and hitting the standard for the 2017 IAAF Track and Field World Championships,” the Vancouver-based runner wrote on Instagram. “Feeling right back on track from where I left off last summer.”

Cliff joins Natasha Wodak and Lanni Marchant among the crop of Canadian women with the 10,000m qualifying standard for the world championships. As many as three athletes can be selected to the team, which will be announced on July 17 after the Canadian championships.

Flanagan, an Olympic silver medallist over 10,000m, won the event in Portland running 31:38.68. She was coming off injury as she withdrew from April’s Boston Marathon because of a fracture in her back. Saturday’s race was her first on the track since 2015 as she has focused on the marathon finishing sixth at the Olympics over that distance.

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