World Athletics Championships: Best Canadian Hopes
The World Athletics Championships are less than a week away after a longer-than-usual hiatus. As the biggest competition for track and field events outside of the Olympics, the 10-day tournament is fast becoming one of the hottest Canada sports betting markets as fans back the athletes they think hold the best chances of bringing home medals for the country.
2022 World Athletic Championships
The 2022 edition of the World Athletic Championships will take place from July 15-24 in Eugene, Oregon, USA. It is the 18th running of the competition, which is usually held every two years, but, like most events, has been caught up in pandemic-related delays since it was last held in 2019.
A total of 49 different track and field events will be held over the 10 days, including running races like the 100 metres, the marathon, and everything in between. We’ll also get to witness all the biggest jumping, vaulting, and throwing competitions as competitors push their bodies to the limit in an attempt to go further or higher than the rest.
For 2022, there will also be a new layer of international competitiveness in the World Athletics Championships, with the WCH announcing just a few months ago that gold, silver, and bronze trophies will be awarded to the teams that secure the most points over the 10 days.
Canadian Hopefuls
Can Team Canada get its hands on at least one of these prizes? Having picked 54 of the nation’s finest athletes, we’ll certainly be hoping so. Between the 30 women and 24 men heading south of the border for Canada athletics, there are 15 Olympic medals among them.
Of course, as talented as our Canadian hopefuls are, it won’t be a total cakewalk. There will be 190 different countries and territories all vying for the same medals, but if anyone can get maple leaf glory, it’s these five world-class stars.
Andre de Grasse
Andre de Grasse is a 27-year-old sprinter from Scarborough, Ontario. He made his first appearance in the World Athletics Championships in 2015, picking up two bronze medals: one in the 100-metre sprint and the other in the 4×100-metre relay.
Since then, de Grasse has consistently improved in the years that followed. At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, he bagged two more bronze medals and a silver, before securing his first Olympic gold medal last year in Tokyo.
In Oregon, de Grasse will be representing Canada in his three favourite events: the 100-metre sprint, the 200-metre sprint, and the 4×100-metre relay. He could conceivably pick up three medals as he has proven himself to be successful in all three in the past.
He’ll have to fight for it, however, as the 100-metre sprint, in particular, is one of the most competitive events on the schedule, so he’ll be up against a herd of rapid runners.
Damian Warner
Damian Warner is another talented athlete taking part in the World Athletic Championships for Team Canada. The 32-year-old made his professional debut at the 2013 WAC event in Moscow, where he secured a bronze medal in the Decathlon.
He went a step further the following year, heading to Scotland to win a gold medal at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
All up, Warner has five gold medals, two silvers, and three bronzes. His most recent victories were at the Tokyo Olympics last year when he picked up a gold in the Decathlon and the 2022 World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, where he got his first Heptathlon gold.
In Oregon, Warner will be representing his country in the Decathlon as one of Canada’s best medal hopefuls.
Mohammed Ahmed
Originally born in Mogadishu, Somalia, Mohammed Ahmed has become Canada’s most successful long-distance runner. His first major competition dates back to 2012, and it was a big one: a qualifying place in the 10 kilometre event at the Olympic Games in London that didn’t end at the podium, and it would be three years later in 2015 that Ahmed secured his first medal.
It was the Pan American Games in Toronto where Ahmed won the gold in style, taking nothing short of first place in the 10,000 metres. After that, he scooped up three silvers in quick succession in the 2018 Commonwealth Games and Continental Cup.
Most recently, Mohammed Ahmed reignited some of that old Olympic spirit by finishing 2nd in the 5,000 metres at Tokyo’s 2020 Games (held in 2021), which he completed in 12 minutes and 58.61 seconds, a new personal best. A podium finish, nearly a decade later.
Riding high off the back of that photo finish, Ahmed is hoping to secure more medals for Canada in the World Athletic Championships. He’ll be taking part in both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres, so if his winning trajectory continues, there’s a very good chance that Ahmed will secure at least one.
Evan Dunfee
Evan Dunfee is one of Canada’s most-decorated racewalkers, having won a total of seven medals for the country. His first came to attention in 2013 at the Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia when he finished third in the 20-kilometre team event. Later that year, he went one better at the Jeux de la Francophonie in Nice, securing silver in the 20-kilometre event.
Since then, Dunfee secured gold in the 2015 Pan American Games and the 2018 North American, Central American and Caribbean Championships. Last time out, in the 2019 World Athletic Championships in Doha, he picked up a bronze in the 50-kilometre walk, a feat he repeated again last year in Tokyo.
In Oregon, Dunfee is taking part in the 35-kilometre racewalk event, which presents a slightly different challenge tactically. That said, he’s excelled at both 50 and 20-kilometre events previously, so this middle-ground race should suit him quite well.
Aaron Brown
Last, but by no means least, on our list is Aaron Brown. Like de Grasse, he will be taking part in the 4×100-metre relay as well as the 100-metre and 200-metre individual events.
At 30, the Toronto-born athlete has already enjoyed a relatively long career in athletics, having won his first medal at the World Youth Championships way back in 2009. Since then, he’s picked up gold and silver in the 2018 NACAC Championships in Toronto, a silver in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, and two bronze medals in the 2013 and 2015 World Athletics Championships.
In the Tokyo Olympics last year, Brown was part of the silver-medal-winning relay team and will be joining de Grasse, Jerome Blake, and Maluchi Murrary for the race in Oregon. As a proven medal winner, he’s another good prospect for Canada to bring it on home.
Can these Canadians outperform the competition and go for gold? Now that the Canada sports betting books are officially open, and the World Athletics Championships are coming at us full throttle, you can give your own native talent a run on your World Athletics betting slip. But time is short – better make it a sprint!