Camryn Rogers became the first Canadian to successfully defend a World Athletics Championships title on Monday, and now Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland is the only women’s hammer throw athlete with a better mark than the Richmond, B.C., athlete.
Rogers topped her national record with a 80.51-metre effort and picked up Canada’s second medal at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
“I let go of the hammer and I knew it was a good throw, but I didn’t know it was that good,” a laughing Rogers told Devin Heroux of CBC Sports. “I saw where it landed and I kind of hand this moment of, ‘Wait, did that just happen? Oh, yeah, ok, let’s go.’
“When I saw the mark, I feel I didn’t believe it at first. It was so shocking and exciting. I felt every emotion all at once. It was one of the best moments of my whole life.”
Leading the women’s competition early on, Rogers threw 80.51 in her second of six attempts to put a stranglehold on the field at Japan National Stadium. Her previous best of 78.88 was set at the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League meet on July 5 in Eugene, Ore.
WATCH | Rogers tops 80 metres for 1st time to win world gold:
Canada’s Camryn Rogers wins hammer throw gold, breaks Canadian record
Wlodarczyk posted a best mark of 82.98 mark at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial meet on Aug. 28, 2016 in Warsaw.
Rogers threw 77.22 two years ago to win world gold in Budapest, Hungary, and four of her six throws on Monday topped her competitors.
She has won 10 of 11 competitions this season.
Chinese athletes Zhao Jie (77.60 personal best) and Zhang Jiale (77.10) rounded out the medal podium on Monday.
Rogers, the world’s top-ranked women’s hammer throw, arrived in Tokyo fresh off a win in Poland, where she threw 75.39 at the Silesia Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Chorzów.
The 26-year-old captured a silver medal at the 2022 world championships in Eugene and 2024 Olympic gold in Paris.
Evan Dunfee, who also hails from Richmond, was Canada’s first male competitor at these worlds and won race walk gold in the 35-kilometre event at his seventh world championships last Friday. The 34-year-old is Canada’s first-ever world champion race walker.
WATCH | Full replay coverage of Day 3 from National Stadium in Tokyo:
World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25: Day 3 evening session
A sensational season on the track might end in heartbreak for Foster Malleck.
The Canadian, positioned in the middle of the pack near the back of the field in a men’s 1,500-semifinal heat, was tripped up, fell and appeared to hit his head on the rail around the midway mark of the second lap at Japan National Stadium.
Malleck and Italy’s Federico Riva, who also fell during the incident, rose to their feet and finished the race. The Kitchener, Ont., native was 10th of 11 finishers in the second of two heats in four minutes 14.09 seconds.
Athletics Canada has submitted an appeal.
WATCH | Malleck finishes 1,500m semifinal heat after fall:
Canada’s Foster Malleck crashes and falls in the 1,500m at the worlds
“I was feeling good and found myself in a good spot. I felt I [was impeded] from everywhere and then fell on the track and was out of [the race],” Malleck told CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux.
“It’s disappointing. I wanted to prove myself against a [world-class] field like this.”
Regardless of the outcome, the first-year professional runner noted his world championship debut has been a “great” experience. The 24-year-old clocked 3:41.53 to grab the sixth and final qualifying spot in his heat for the semifinals.
“This whole year I think I’ve been underrated [on the international scene]. Getting into the semis was definitely a goal but I wanted to mix it up here and see if I could give myself a shot at making the final,” said Malleck.
He concluded his NCAA career with Boston University in March and left with school records in the mile (3:53.82) and 3,000 (7:50.96). Malleck’s 3:32.38 season best in the 1,500 is second all-time among Canadian men, next to Kevin Sullivan (3:31.76).
Thirteen days after placing second at the Canadian championships on Aug. 3, Malleck was victorious at the NACAC Championships in the Bahamas, running 3:37.54 to break American Eric Holt’s meet record.
Olympic champion Cole Hocker of the United States was disqualified from the world semifinals after judges ruled he jostled other runners while making a late move on the inside.
Hocker was running near the inside edge of the track when he got boxed in and turned semi-sideways to squeeze past Germany’s Robert Farken.
Hocker finished second. Farken finished the race two spots out of a qualifying position but was advanced to the final because of the interference.
Canada’s Jean-Simon Desgagnés said he was fit enough to contend for a medal and worked his way to third spot in the men’s 3,000m steeplechase final, but faded over the final two laps and placed 13th of 15 finishers in eight minutes 39.96 seconds.
A determined Desgagnés, who was eighth in the 2023 final, ran near the front of the pack for much of the race.
He advanced to the final on a referee’s decision after he was tripped up by New Zealand’s Georgie Beamish 400 metres from the finish line.
Beamish won Monday’s race in comeback fashion, overtaking two-time Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco, who was a 2022 and 2023 world champion.
Kenya’s Edmund Serem collected bronze in his worlds debut on Monday.
Desgagnés of Saint-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Que., secured his spot for Tokyo with an 8:14.40 effort in Finland on June 17, his second-fastest time ever, to dip under the 8:15 automatic world championships qualifying standard.
It was six seconds faster than his previous best. He won his third straight Canadian title in the event on July 31 in Ottawa.
Ethan Katzberg of Nanaimo, B.C., qualified in top spot on Sunday for Tuesday’s men’s hammer throw final at 8:01 a.m. ET with a throw of 81.85 metres on his first and only attempt.
“I did what I needed to do,” Katzberg said. The feelings were good. It was nice and technical and that’s what I was looking for today.”
Like Rogers, Katzberg entered Tokyo as the reigning world and Olympic champion in his event.
Rowan Hamilton of Chilliwack, B.C., missed qualifying after finishing seventh in Group A with a throw of 75.38 metres.
In the lone medal event, Cam Levins of Black Creek, B.C., finished 12th in the men’s marathon with a season-best time of two hours 11 minutes seven seconds.
The 36-year-old Levins, who holds the North American men’s marathon record at 2:05.36 — set at the 2023 Tokyo Marathon — called the race a “really great bounce back” after running the 2024 Olympic marathon in Paris on a broken foot.
“I wasn’t able to make a hard move at the end, but I felt like I hung in there pretty well,” he said.
Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania won in 2:09:48 in a thrilling photo finish with Germany’s Amanal Petros. Italy’s Illiass Aouani was third in 2:09:53.
Justin Kent of Surrey, B.C., was 35th in 2:17:12, with fellow Canadian Ben Preisner of Milton, Ont., finishing 20 seconds behind him in 36th.
Armand “Mondo” Duplantis broke the pole vault world record for the 14th time, clearing 6.30 metres to capture his third world championship on Monday.
Duplantis, who grew up in Louisiana but competes for his mother’s native Sweden, easily won his 49th straight meet and fifth straight major title, including Olympics, then kept the crowd around for another drama-rich half-hour to watch him go for the record.
He cleared his top height (20 feet, eight inches) on his third and final try — the bar still bouncing but not falling as he leaped off the mat and jumped into second-place finisher Emmanouil Karalis’s arms to start the celebration.
WATCH | Duplantis raises his world record clearance to 6.30 metres:
Mondo Duplantis breaks pole vault world record at the World Athletics Championships
Duplantis gets $70,000 US for the victory plus a $100,000 bonus for setting the record at the world championships. The jam-packed stadium that stuck around for his finale gets a great memory.
“To give you guys this moment, it’s just amazing,” Duplantis said in an in-stadium interview.
The 25-year-old first broke the record on Feb. 8, 2020, clearing 6.17 and knocking France’s 2012 Olympic champion, Renaud Lavillenie, off the top spot.
Since then, Duplantis has improved upon the record by one centimetre every time, giving him more opportunities to pocket bonuses like the one he gets at this event.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
