BC's Best Tackle the Marathon
All the athletes representing Team Canada on the road in Tokyo are from BC.
Natasha Wodak will be making her 5th appearance at the World Championships in Tokyo. Wodak is the Canadian Record holder with a 2:23:12 performance in Berlin in 2022, and has made 2 appearances at the Olympics, including a 13th place finish in Tokyo. Wodak grew up in Surrey and Port Moody and was a student-athlete at SFU, where she finished 5th at the 2004 NAIA Championships in the 5000m and led SFU to the 4x800m gold that same year.
On the men's side, the BC trio of Justin Kent, Cameron Levins, and Ben Preisner will be competing for Team Canada. Levins, hailing from Vancouver Island, holds the North American record in the Men's Marathon with a 2:05:36 clocking in Tokyo in 2023. Levins is an 11-time Canadian Champion across multiple events including the marathon, and he also holds the National Record for the half marathon (which he set in Vancouver). Levins competed for Southern Utah in the NCAA and became the first ever Canadian to win the prestigious Bowerman Award. He won the 5000m and 10, 000m at the 2012 NCAA Championships.
Kent grew up in Surrey, BC, and went on to represent UBC at the collegiate level. In 2013, he became the NAIA National Champion in the 3000m Steeplechase, and won 2 silver medals with UBC's 4x800m team. Kent also represented Canada in the Men's Marathon at the 2023 edition of the World Championships. He has a personal best time of 2:09:29.
Preisner has a personal best time of 2:08:58 in the marathon. Although he grew up in Ontario, he now trains in BC. Preisner attended the University of Tulsa, competing in the NCAA. He was a conference champion for Tulsa in the indoor 3000m and 5000m multiple times, and conference champion in the outdoor 5000m. At the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Preisner was the lead Canadian in the Men's Marathon event, and will be looking to repeat that performance this time around.