Canadian Working and Below Armour have teamed up for the 2024 Canadian U Sports activities indoor observe and area season to focus on a number of the prime homegrown abilities throughout the nation. Every week main as much as the 2024 U Sports activities Indoor Monitor and Area Championships in Winnipeg this March, Canadian Working will choose one female and male observe and area athlete because the Below Armour Athlete of the Week.
Every week, the award will go to a female and male U Sports activities observe and area athlete who achieved a standout efficiency, broke a college file or crushed a private finest. Every week of the U Sports activities 2024 season, these athletes might be featured on Canadian Working and awarded an Below Armour prize pack. This week we spotlight two sensational athletes: middle-distance runner Max Davies of Guelph College and 60m sprinter Audrey Leduc of Université Laval for his or her performances between Jan. 22-28.
Feminine Athlete of the Week: Audrey Leduc–ladies’s 60m
Laval sprinter Audrey Leduc had a weekend to recollect on the McGill Crew Problem in Montreal on Jan 26-27. The 24-year-old enterprise pupil from Gatineau, Que., clocked a brand new private finest of seven.29 seconds within the ladies’s 60m, equalling the quickest 60m time by a Canadian girl in 2024. Leduc’s time broke Laval’s 60m faculty file of seven.31 seconds, set in 2009. However Leduc was not completed; she additionally helped the Laval ladies’s 4x200m relay workforce to gold on the McGill Crew Problem, setting a brand new faculty, convention and Quebec provincial file of 1:37.66. To prime it off, she completed second within the lengthy soar, with a season’s-best soar of 5.75 metres.
“I couldn’t be happier with my race,” Leduc informed Canadian Working about her 60m efficiency. “Setting the varsity file has been a purpose because the first day I got here to Université Laval.” Her time additionally equals the Quebec provincial 60m file of seven.29 seconds, set by Kimberly Hyacinthe in 2014.
Leduc has lofty targets for the rest of the U Sports activities season. “I need to win the 60 metres and defend my lengthy soar title,” she says. Outdoors of U Sports activities, her dream is to be on the Canadian Olympic workforce in Paris. “I need to qualify for the 100m and the 4x100m relay workforce,” says Leduc.
Male Athlete of the Week: Max Davies–males’s 1,500m
Canada has its seventy fifth sub-four-minute miler, and his title is Max Davies. On Saturday on the Penn State Open in College Park, Penn., Davies gained the boys’s mile in a brand new Guelph Gryphons faculty file time of three:59.24. His time surpassed his former teammate Alec Purnell’s file of three:59.72 from final yr. Davies was not completed; the 20-year-old additionally earned a large new private finest within the 3,000m, recording the quickest time by a Canadian U Sports activities athlete this yr (8:00.24).
Davies informed Canadian Working that breaking the four-minute mile mark has been a purpose since he began working. “I’m very proud of my performances and completely satisfied to name myself a sub-4 miler,” he says. His purpose was additionally to interrupt the eight-minute mark for 3K, however since he doesn’t race over 3,000m very a lot, he says he can’t complain about having achieved a private finest.
Regardless of becoming a member of the sub-four-minute mile membership, Davies is keen to get again on the observe to race one other mile, however this time in Boston. “The purpose is to have some enjoyable and race quick at OUAs and U Sports activities,” he says. “I’m planning on working the 1,500m, 1,000m, and the 4x800m relay.”
Avery Pearson and Jude Wheeler-Dee named Below Armour U Sports activities Athletes of the Week
If you want to appoint a Canadian U Sports activities athlete for Below Armour Athlete of the Week, ship @canadianrunning a message on Instagram or e mail marley@runningmagazine.ca.
