Cam Levins of Black Creek has shattered his own Canadian record by more than two minutes in placing fourth Sunday in the men’s marathon at the 2022 world track and field championships in Eugene, Oregon. It was the best-ever placing by a Canadian in the event but the blistering pace took a toll.
“I felt great until the last bit when I felt I was about to throw up,” the Islander told a media scrum at the finish line.
“It’s amazing. I was here trying to medal. The only way I could be happier is if I was at least one placing higher. It was the best race of my life, so I couldn’t be too disappointed with it.”
Levins was across in two hours and 07.09 seconds to smash his previous Canadian standard of 2:09:25 set in the 2018 Toronto Marathon, which had bested Jerome Drayton’s hallowed 43-year-old Canadian record of 2:10:09 set in 1975 in Fukuoka, Japan.
Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia became the 2022 world champion in a meet-record 2:05:37 with countryman Mosinet Geremew the repeat world championship silver medalist, equalling his placing from Doha in 2019, in 2:06:45, and Tokyo Olympics bronze-medalist Basher Abdi of Belgium again was the man of bronze with a 2:06:49 clocking to take third place at the worlds.
Levins’s world championship performance made up for the Tokyo Olympics last summer when he went out and stayed with the lead pack in the early- and mid-portion of the race before fading to 72nd place.
“I really took a lot away from the last Olympics when I was among the last finishers,” said Levins, who is coached by former Victoria marathoner Jim Finlayson.
“I realized I needed to be better in every way across the board. I worked and changed myself completely as an athlete from last year to this year, and trained harder and better in every conceivable way. I know I earned this and deserved to run this fast.”
At the finish line Sunday to watch the diligent training work pay off were Levins’s wife, Elizabeth, who he married on the grounds of St. Ann’s Academy in Victoria on Canada Day in 2013, and his parents Barb and Gus, who had come down to Oregon from Black Creek.
This was a significant chapter added to Levins’s running story. It began in Grade 7 with the Comox Valley Cougars Track Club. He rose to the Island and B.C. high school cross-country championships with the G.P. Vanier Secondary Towhees of Courtenay before becoming 2012 NCAA Div. 1 champion in both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres with the University of Southern Utah.
Levins qualified for the finals of both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at the 2012 London Olympics. The Islander then won the bronze medal in the 10,000 metres in a thundering homestretch at Hampden Park in the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
A torn tendon in the left foot and surgery kept Levins out of the 2016 Rio Olympics. But he returned spectacularly in 2018 when he switched from the track to the road and eclipsed, by 44 seconds in his debut marathon, Drayton’s four-decade plus Canadian record. On Sunday, Levins did that more than two minutes better.
