Sheila Reid among 5 new additions to Canada’s track team

Olympic dreams for five more Canadian runners came true on Thursday, as Athletics Canada announced that their appeals were successful.

Sheila Reid of Newmarket, Ont., has been selected as one of five last-minute additions to Canada’s Olympic track and field team. She will compete in the 5000m in London. Sprinters Daundre Barnaby (400m), Aaron Brown (200m), Tremaine Harris (200m) and Keri Ann Mitchell (100m) were also named to the team after appeals.

Reid set a personal best in the 5000m of 15:23.64 at the Mt. Sac Relays in April, under the Olympic “B” standard, but narrowly missing the “A” standard of 15:20. Her only other 5000m this season came at the Olympic Trials, which she won in a slow time of 16:15.23, hampered by the high altitude in Calgary.

The five-time NCAA champion, who had also run two “B” standards in the 1500m this season, submitted an appeal for selection as a “Rising Star” for London.

Harris’s selection came after he ran the Olympic “A” standard at the recent NACAC U-23 championships in Mexico, posting a time of 20.22 seconds, which ranks him ninth in the world. Although he made the standard after Athletics Canada’s June 30 deadline, the governing body made an exception.

Brown, who won Canada’s only medal at the 2010 world junior championships, submitted a successful appeal based on an injury that slowed him down at the Trials.

Barnaby, a recent immigrant to Canada, was originally left off the team for citizenship reasons. Now that he has received his Canadian passport, he’s good to go for London.