Sutherland, Morales Williams among Canadians to hit qualifying times for track worlds
Several Canadian track athletes achieved world championship-qualifying times this weekend, ahead of this summer's World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
Three of those marks were set on Sunday at the Edmonton Athletics Invitational, with Savannah Sutherland and Christopher Morales Williams recording season-best times, while Audrey Leduc bettered her own national record.
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Sutherland, the Borden, Sask., native who's had an incredible season in the women's 400-metre hurdles, won the 400 flat on Sunday in 50.62 seconds, clearing the world standard of 50.75.
The 21-year-old finished her collegiate career by setting a new NCAA record in the 400m hurdles in June, and on Friday, Sutherland announced she signed a pro contract with Adidas.
Leduc, of Gatineau, Que., had already matched the women's 100m standard of 11.07 at a meet in Baton Rouge, La., in late April, but she ran a new personal-best 10.94 in Edmonton during a qualifying heat. That also bettered her own Canadian record by one-hundredth of a second.
The 29-year-old also won Sunday's final with a time of 11.06.
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Morales Williams, of Vaughan, Ont., won the men's 400m event at Foote Field in 44.85 seconds, equalling the world standard.
Two other Canadians hit their respective world standards earlier in the weekend.
On Friday, Toronto's Gabriela DeBues-Stafford finished her women's 1,500m race in 4:01.19 at the Morton Games in Dublin. The next day, Matthew Erickson, of Nelson, B.C., reached the mark in the men's 800m, running to a personal best of 1:44.49 at the Sound Running Sunset Tour in L.A.
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