What a pleasant surprise to see that there is a Canadian TV show dedicated to running. The show is co-produced by Athletics Canada and started airing on CTV Sportsnet Sunday July 25^th. It will air for 10 weeks every Sunday at 1 pm. The show focuses on all aspects of running but has a major Canadian slant. The first show had the likes of Leah Pells, Donovan Bailey, Glenroy Gilbert, Robert Esmie, Bruny Surin and Katie Anderson. While the focus was obviously on the track athletes, it is still very gratifying to see Canadian athletes covered.

Canada is not the only country who decided not to send a full team for the marathon at the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg. There were only 10 female participants and 8 male participants in the marathon held on Sunday July 25. The male and female races were separated by 15 minutes. This low number of competitors would make for an odd race. No wonder CBC decided not to cover the marathon. The top runners were not there and the competition was not there.

The competitors must also have been quite surprise seeing only a few people to run with. Jenny Crain, the American, one week before the race, did not know who the competition would be. She wondered in a Runners World Online interview who would represent Canada, and expected her strongest competition would come from the Mexican. It would be strange to run a marathon with so few competitors. It might become quite lonely out there and it would be hard to gain energy from other competitors.

The performances at the Games were nonetheless quite impressive. Brazil's Vanderlei Lima and Chile's Erika Olivera won gold medals. The strong winds and humid conditions made the marathon a difficult run. Lima's time of 2:17:20 was almost 9 minutes off his personal best, while Olivera's time of 2:37:41 was over minutes off her PB set in Rotterdam this year. Olivera set a new Pan Am Games record with her time.

Other events of interest for road runners included the 5,000 and 10,000 m races. In the men's 5,000 m races, there were 2 Canadians, Sean Kaley and Jeff Schiebler. The race was well covered by CBC who showed about half of the race. The race was quite exciting as Jeff Schiebler started at the back, but in the later stages of the race, stayed with the front runners. Jeff finished fourth in the race, but through some strange occurrence, won the bronze medal. The first runner was disqualified for blocking the competitor behind him as they charged to the finish line. Jeff ran a well executed race and showed that he belongs amongst the best in the world finishingin13:44. Sean Kaley ended up further back in the pack in 9th in 14:06. In the women's 10,000m race, Tina Connelly placed 3^rd in 33:28. This is comparable to her Canadian title where she won in 33:04.

Marathon Results

 Though the Olympics are the biggest and most famous sporting event in the world, the World Track and Field Championship are at least on par in terms of prestige in the Track and Field world. This event comes every two years and the best in the world compete against each other. In these Championship, the competition can be more fierce than the Olympics as people are vying for money and often the chance for bonuses for world records. There are no bonuses for records at the Olympics.

Canada will be sending its largest team yet to the World Championship as 46 athletes will be competing in Seville, Spain. The Championship starts on August 20 and ends on August 29. The Canadian Team is comprised of 28 men and 18 women. For the marathon, the qualifying times for men is 2:14:40/2:16 (A/B) and for the women, 2:33:40/2:36 (A/B). Similar to the occurrence at the Pan Am Games, no Canadians has qualified with an A standard. For the women, unfortunately, no one has qualified based on the above B times. For the men, Bruce Deacon, has qualified and will be representing Canada at the Championship. Bruce his an Olympian who has also represented Canada at previous World Championship.

CBC will be covering the event the weekends of August 21 and August 28. CBC has been wonderful this year in the coverage of track and field events. It is showing the Golden League track and field events held in Europe, and will provide extensive coverage of the World Championship. Any fans of athletics should contact CBC to encourage them to continue covering running events.

Danuta Bartoszek has represented Canada at major Championships and was ranked #1 in the marathon by Athletics Canada last year. Her country of origin is Poland where she lived with her husband till 1987. She was the 1984 National champion over 1500m. Danuta and her husband emigrated to Canada in1989. The difficult economic situation was the reason for leaving. Today, Danuta lives in Mississauga, ON with her husband and two children age 12 and 9. She obtained her Canadian citizenship in 1992. That year she ran the Toronto marathon as a Canadian and finished 2^nd in 2:34:41. Though she is earning money competing in road races, she still needs the financial support of her husband.

This year, at 38, Danuta has been running strong at all distances on the road running circuit. She won two major 10 K road races in Toronto in time of 33:09 and 34:43, as well the Nordion 10K in Ottawa in May in a time of 34:17. She won a 5K in Hamilton, ON in March in 16:33, and won the Vancouver Half Marathon in June in 1:16. Everything bodes well for another impressive year for Danuta Bartoszek. You can bet that you will see Danuta on the roads for many more years, often representing Canada at major international events.

Past Performances

Tina Connelly, hot off her performance at the Pan Am Games, won America's Finest City Half Marathon in San Diego on August 15. It also made for a wonderful birthday present as she turned 29 the day after the race. Tina, who was running her first half marathon in nearly 4 years won in a time of 1:14:02, the year's fastest Canadian half marathon. America's Finest City Half Marathon is the 5^th largest half in the States with 5000 participants.

Under overcast conditions which were almost ideal for running, Tina felt good as she was staying with the leaders, Taeko Terauchi, the 1998 winner and Hungary's Karolina Szabo. Szabo went to the lead at 8 miles, but slowed down at 12 miles. Tina ended up finishing 17 seconds ahead of Szabo and earned $1200 for her victory. Connelly, a full-time nurse, hopes to qualify for the 2000 Olympics in the 10,000m. This is quite the change from the early 90's where she stopped running for a few years because of injury.

Nancy Tinari was the 1^st Masters (40+) in a time of 22:09.

F1 - Rene McKibbin -1:29:03

M1 - Rick Hickson - 1:16:41

F1 - Tina Connelly - 33:25

F2 (40+) -Nancy Tinari - 34:50

F3 - Cari Rampersad - 36:23

M1 (40+) - Graeme Fell - 31:01

M2 - Colin Dignum - 31:24

M3 - Richard Lee - 32:24

M1 - Miguel Sanchez - 1:10:00

M2 - Christian Marmen - 1:10:00

M3 - Sylvain St-Gelais - 1:10:48

F1 - Cindy New - 1:21:08

F2 - Leslie Gold - 1:25:11

F3 - Dominique Miron - 1:25:28

F1 - Nurten Tasdemir - 1:19:19

F2 - Nancy Tinari - 1:21:28

F3 - Gillian Pereira - 1:24:40

F1 (40+) - Nancy Tinari - 1:21:28

M1 - Tim Luchsinske - 1:11:06

M2 - Alex Coffin - 1:11:46

M3 - James Gardner - 1:12:14

M1 (40+) - Charles Desjardins - 1:17:43

Carol Howe placed 3^rd in a time of 27:58.

F1 - Nathalie Cote

M1 - Scott MacDonald