Jerome Blake broke the Canadian track and field championship record running 19.95 seconds to win the men’s 200-metre title on Sunday.
The previous meet record was held by Brendon Rodney — Blake’s teammate on Canada’s Olympic champion 4×100 men’s relay team — who ran 19.96 in 2016. The time was also a personal best for Blake, who turns 30 on Aug. 18.
Toronto’s Aaron Brown (20.08), also a teammate of Blake’s on the relay team, and Ottawa’s Eliezer Adjibi (20.60) finished second and third, respectively.
19.95s!!! 🔥
Personal Best ☑️
Jerome Blake 🇨🇦 goes sub-20 for the first time as he wins the Canadian 200m title in 19.95s (1.6) ahead of Aaron Brown 🇨🇦 in 20.08s.
Both go below the world standard and are expected to compete over 200m in Tokyo.
📸 Mundosportimages pic.twitter.com/32iaBSHynB
Blake, from Kelowna, B.C., and Brown both met the 200 qualifying standard time (20.16) for the upcoming world championships in Tokyo in September.
Blake also has the standard in the 100, having ran a personal-best time of 9.97 seconds on June 21 at a meet in Germany.
Audrey Leduc, of Gatineau, Que., claimed the women’s 200m final, dashing to a 22.55 time.
Leduc outdid a pair of Royal City competitors in Toronto’s Zoe Sherar (22.78) and Ottawa’s Jacqueline Madogo (22.81) in the final.
In the women’s 1,500m final, Gabriela DeBues-Stafford of Toronto raced to victory in a time of 4:08.38, ahead of her younger sister, Lucia Stafford, who finished as runner-up in a time of 4:10.48.
Kate Current, of Cobourg, Ont., placed third at 4:11.35 to round out the podium positions.
In the field, Arthur Stanat of St. Thomas, Ont., took the senior men’s shot put event with a toss of 17.35m,
