Karla Del Grande has added her sixth masters world record

A week after the end of the Olympic Games, our Canadian athletes are still making headlines on the track.

World Masters Athlete of the Decade Karla Del Grande set a new W65 300m hurdles world record at the Athletics Ontario Masters Championships on the weekend at Toronto’s York University. Del Grande had the W65 300m hurdles Canadian record, which she set in 2020 at 54.70. This weekend she dropped her time down to 54.00 flat.

Del Grande has a long history of success on the track at the masters level. She began competing in 2002 (when she was 49) and has held numerous Canadian records in the sprints in various age categories. She has been named the Ontario Masters Athletics’ Female Masters Athlete of the Year seven times. Del Grande has set the 100m and 200m world records in the W60 and W65 categories, and in 2019 she added a W65 400m world record.

Canadian Olympians Natalia Hawthorn and Lindsey Butterworth were in action at the Ed Murphey Classic in Memphis, Tenn. Hawthorn said on Instagram that this was her last race of the season, as she went after the 2022 World Championship standard, which is 4:04. Hawthorn took home 2nd place in the women’s elite 1,500m in a time of 4:06.51, two seconds shy of the standard. Butterworth ran the 800m in a time of 2:01.57 for sixth, ahead of fellow Canadian middle-distance athlete Ashley Taylor, who finished seventh. Both Butterworth and Taylor also fell shy of the 1:59.50 800m standard for 2022 Worlds. 

In the men’s 3000m, Jean-Simon Desgagnés finished third and set a new personal best of 7:53.01 over 3,000m in his last race of the 2021 track season. This result is a sigh of relief for Desgagnés, who recently finished a month of training at altitude in Flagstaff. 

posted Wednesday August 18th
by Marley Dickinson