Canada's women run to national indoor record in 400m relay at world championships

Sage Watson won't be flashing a medal upon her return from the World Athletics indoor championships but has added her name to the Canadian record book.

Watson anchored the women's 4x400-metre relay team to a national record time of three minutes 31.45 seconds in Sunday's heats, nearly five seconds faster than the 3:36.03 performance by Karlene Haughton, Foy Williams, Candace Jones and Naabiama Salifu on March 5, 2000.

Sunday's effort, however, wasn't enough for Ottawa's Lauren Gale, Toronto's Kyra Constantine, Natassha McDonald of Brampton, Ont., and Watson of Medicine Hat, Alta., to advance to the six-team final in Belgrade, Serbia as they finished eighth of 10 teams.

Jamaica ran a season-best 3:30.91 to grab the last qualifying spot while the United States was first in 3:28.83, also a season best.

Watson, 27, also holds the Canadian mark in the women's outdoor 400 hurdles (54.32 seconds) while the 22-year-old Gale has run national records in the indoor 200 (23.00) and 400 (51.64). Constantine, 23, is tops in the country in the indoor women's 300 (36.94).

Last August, Watson and Constantine and Watson narrowly missed helping Canada earn its first Olympic medal in the 4x400 relay since 1984. They also won 2019 Pan Am silver with McDonald.

Canada sat third around the final bend of the anchor leg in Tokyo but Jamaica's Candace McLeod caught Watson on the straightaway on the way to a bronze medal. Alicia Brown, Maddy Price, Constantine and Watson were 60-100ths of a second behind in fourth in a season-best 3:21.84 and only 63-100ths off the Canadian record that has stood for 38 years.

Charmaine Crooks, Molly Killingbeck, Jillian Richardson-Briscoe and Marita Payne-Wiggins remain the only 4x400 team from Canada with an Olympic medal after they ran a Canadian-record 3:21.21 for silver in Los Angeles.

Elsewhere, Lindsey Butterworth of North Vancouver, B.C., stopped the clock in 2:03.21 for sixth in the women's 800 final after qualifying in 2:01.99. She clocked a 2:01.45 personal and season best on Feb. 27 in Boston.

The 2021 Canadian outdoor 800 champion ran 2:02.45 in her 2020 Olympic debut in Tokyo but didn't advance to the semifinals, finishing 32nd.

Duplantis bumps pole vault world record to 6.20m

Olympic champion Mondo Duplantis again broke his own pole vault world record with a 6.20-metre clearance.

The 22-year-old Swede had promised "something higher" at the event and set the new mark at his third and final attempt. He had already secured his first world title with a clearance of 6.05.

Duplantis had a 6.19-metre clearance on March 7 at the Belgrade Indoor Meeting at the same Stark Arena, extending his record from 6.18 that was set in February 2020 in Glasgow.

Triple jump world mark rises to 15.74m

Triple jumper Yulimar Rojas broke her own women's world record with a leap of 15.74 metres on Sunday.

With the final jump of the competition, the Venezuelan went seven centimetres beyond the mark she set in winning Olympic gold last summer.

The new outright women's world record was also 31 cm beyond the best indoor mark held by Rojas.

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