Olympic hopeful Leslie Sexton leads Canadian team into cross-country athletics worlds

Leslie Sexton feels good physically and appears poised to make a final attempt on April 28 in Hamburg, Germany at qualifying for her first Olympic marathon.

First, she will be part of Canada's 28-member team — 14 women and men — at the World Athletics Cross-Country Championships on Saturday in Belgrade, Serbia. Sexton will run on grass and pedestrian paths covered with dirt and sand for the $30,000 US top prize in the senior women's 10-kilometre event.

"Recovery has gone well since the Houston Marathon [on Jan. 14] and I'm looking forward to testing myself over different distances and surfaces. It's a little bit of everything, but marathon fitness is fitness," Sexton wrote in an Instagram post earlier this month.

The 36-year-old ran a personal-best time of two hours 28 minutes 14 seconds in Houston for her third consecutive sub-2:29 performance and fell one minute 14 seconds shy of the automatic entry standard for the Aug. 11 women's Olympic marathon in Paris.

The native of Markham, Ont., returned home to Vancouver, where she raced a half marathon, 5K road race and 5,000 metres on the track the past six weeks.

Sexton, who is co-coach of the post-secondary cross-country, track and road running programs at the University of British Columbia, clocked 16:07 in the St. Patrick's Day 5K at Stanley Park on March 16. Vancouver's Glynis Sim posted the second-fastest time in event history, winning in 15:37. She will join Sexton in Saturday's race in the Park of Friendship, one of the largest parks in Belgrade that overlooks the Sava and Danube rivers.

Watch Saturday's action from Serbia on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. Coverage begins at 5:30 a.m. ET, with the women's U20 race at 6 a.m. The U20 men (6:35 a.m.), senior women (7:45 a.m.) and senior men (8:30 a.m.) will follow.

Sim, Bazeley, and Toronto's Mikaela Lucki finished 2-3-4 at the national cross-country championships in November. Lucki will also be part of the Canadian contingent in Belgrade along with Ottawa's Katie Newlove, who claimed individual gold in November to lead the UBC Thunderbirds women to their first-ever U Sports banner.

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Beatrice Chebet was among Kenya's event-leading six champions in Bathurst and will return to defend her title. Later in 2023, she earned world championship bronze on the track in the 5,000 metres and was victorious in the women's 5K at the inaugural World Athletics Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia.

On the men's side, Andrew Davies (Sarnia, Ont.) and Max Turek (Whitby, Ont.) return after helping Canada's shorthanded men's team place 10th in a field of 13 in Bathurst. Connor Black, the 2022 Canadian champion, withdrew due to illness but will race Saturday.

A former runner at Hamilton's McMaster University, Davies claimed a U Sports bronze medal four months ago, helping the UBC men's squad to its first national title since 1993.

Turek, the 2022 U Sports male cross-country athlete of the year, was second in the half marathon at the Toronto Waterfront event last October.

I'm particularly enthused about the dynamic mix of experience and new talent within our team.— Canadian team leader Heather Hennigar

Jeremy Coughler of Port Hope, Ont. (28:28.30), Thomas Fafard of Repentigny, Que. (28:39.29) and Turek (29:12.18) enter Saturday coming off personal-best times in the 10,000 on March 16 at The TEN event in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. Toronto's Andrew Alexander ran a separate 10,000 race at The TEN (28:22.29) and is competing Saturday.

Philippe Morneau-Cartier of La Pocatière, Que., is another Canadian to watch in Belgrade. He finished second to Kieran Lumb by two seconds at the 2023 Canadian cross-country championships following an undefeated U Sports season that culminated in a silver medal with the Laval Rouge et Or.

Ugandan distance runners Jacob Kiplimo and Joshua Cheptegei, the winners of the past two world cross-country titles, are the senior men to beat in Belgrade, which hosted the indoor track and field championships two years ago.

The world half marathon record holder, Kiplimo has also had success on the track as a bronze medallist in the 10,000 at the 2021 Olympics and 2022 worlds.

Canada has earned nine medals over the 44 editions of cross-country worlds and will have six runners in each of the women's U20 (6 km) and men's U20 (8 km) races on the 1.89 km-looped course, which features two arch bridges, hay maze and a cross-country hurdle.

There will not be a Canadian entry in the 12-country mixed relay after the team placed eighth a year ago.