The University of Toronto's Varsity Centre, for the second straight year, is hosting the Canadian Track and Field Championships from Wednesday, July 28 to Saturday, July 31.
More than 10,000 spectators are expected to take in the event, and the CBC will again be on hand for a live broadcast on the final day.
This year, a new tournament format is designed to be spectator and television friendly.
The first two days (Wednesday and Thursday) serve as qualifying rounds for eligible athletes who haven't met automatic qualifying standards.
And then the final two days (Friday and Saturday) are packed with non-stop semifinal and championship rounds.
One of the most anticipated races is shaping up to be the 30th meeting - including the third at Varsity Stadium - between world-class hurdlers Perdita Felicien and Pricilla Lopes-Schliep.
A former Malvern resident, Lopes-Schliep attended Scarborogh's Pope John Paul for two years prior to her family moving to Whitby, where she currently resides, and attending Father Leo J. Austen CSS. She is a first cousin of Scarborough soccer star Dwayne De Rosario of Toronto FC.
Felicien was born in Oshawa and grew up in Pickering.
They are both familiar with the new track, which they helped usher in last year with two races - Lopes-Schliep won the Festival of Excellence (which memorably featured triple Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt) and Felicien rebounded at the subsequent national championships.
Felicien is the 2003 world champion; Lopes-Schlip won Olympic bronze in Beijing in 2008. The two finished second and third, respectively, at the 2010 World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar.
Here are some other things to watch out for:
- The women's heptathlon has quickly become one of Canada's deepest events. Canadian record holder Jessica Zelinka (London, Ont.) who took a year off to have a child is back and has the same fire in her eyes, which led her to a fifth-place finish at the 2008 Olympic Games and she will be challenged by Brianne Theisen (Humboldt, Sask.), double NCAA champion and Canada's lone representative in the heptathlon at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin; and Ruky Abdulai (Coquitlam, B.C.), a former high jumper who scored more than 6,000 points in her first heptathlon early this season;
- Dylan Armstrong (Kamloops, B.C.), in men's shot put, set a Canadian indoor record and finished fourth at the World Indoor Championships. A few weeks ago he set a new Canadian outdoor record, improving the standing mark by an unheard of 54 centimetres;
- Sultana Frizell (Perth, Ont.), in women's hammer throw, has improved the Canadian record in back to back years, recently improving it to 72.24 metres;
- Coming off one of the strongest performances ever by a Canadian at the World Cross Country Championships where he placed 13th, Simon Bairu (Regina, Sask.) returned to the track and broke the nine-year Canadian Record in the 10,000 metres;
- Josh Cassidy (Port Elgin, Ont.), in wheelchair 1,500 metres, took the Canadian Marathon title in the nation's capital and won in London, England, outdueling race legend Ernst van Dyk of South Africa;
- Gary Reed (Kamloops, B.C.), 800m, who finished second at the 2007 World Championships and fourth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, hasn't been defeated at the Canadian Championships dating back to 2003.
Varsity Centre on Bloor Street (between Queen's Park Crescent and Devonshire Place) is currently in the midst of an extensive $92-million revamping, which allowed the national track and field championships to be held in Toronto last year for the first time in 40 years.
The old Varsity Stadium was the site of Canada's first sub-four minute mile as well as numerous Grey Cups and Vanier Cups. It also famously hosted a rare John Lennon Live Peace concert in 1969.
Key links:
- 2010 Canadian Track and Field Championships website at www.athletics.ca/toronto2010
- Purchase tickets at http://www.athletics.ca/toronto2010/main.asp?id=465
- Athletics Canada's official website at www.athletics.ca