Cam Levins鈥� follow-up season, after his breakthrough bronze medal last year in Glasgow at the Commonwealth Games, isn鈥檛 going the way he might have hoped.
The runner from Black Creek, a finalist in both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres as one of the 48 Island athletes at the 2012 London Summer Olympics, laboured mightily to a 14th-place finish Saturday in the 10,000 metres of the 2015 IAAF world track and field championships at the Bird鈥檚 Nest Stadium in Beijing.
Levins鈥� training partner in the Oregon Track Project, the Olympic-champion Mo Farah from Great Britain, defended his world title by taking gold in 27:01.13, running through two Kenyans down the stretch and leaving Geoffrey Kamworor with the silver and Paul Kipngetch Tanui the bronze.
Levins was well behind the drama occurring in the leading group as he faded to a 28:16.30 clocking, while another training partner from the Oregon Project, Galen Rupp of the U.S., was fifth in the 27-man field.
The season began promisingly as Levins set a Canadian record in the 10,000 metres by going 27:07.51, but he was well off that pace Saturday.
This comes after the Islander placed fifth in the 5,000 metres at the home-country 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto in an event in which he was justifiably favoured for the podium.
The Courtenay G.P. Vanier graduate and 2012 Bowerman Award winner as the top NCAA track athlete of that year 鈥� who is known for the voluminous kilometres he logs in training 鈥� gets another crack at the Bird鈥檚 Nest when he contests the 5,000 metres qualifying rounds beginning Wednesday.
High jumper and two-time Olympian Michael Mason from Nanoose Bay 鈥� the Parksville Ballenas grad and silver medallist at Toronto in the Pan Am Games and bronze medallist in Glasgow at the Commonwealth Games 鈥� also competes at the world championships, beginning with the qualification rounds Friday.
Meanwhile, emerging Canadian sensation and NCAA sprint champion Andre De Grasse from Markham, Ont., ran 9.9 seconds Saturday and advanced to today鈥檚 semifinals of the men鈥檚 100 metres alongside Jamaican legend Usain Bolt.
INTERNATIONAL NOTEBOOK: The indefatigable Geoff Kabush, the 38-year-old UVic mechanical engineering grad from Courtenay, who was top-10 twice in his three Olympic appearances, is still at it. The Islander will represent sa国际传媒 again at the 2015 UCI world mountain-biking championships Aug. 31-Sept. 6 in Vallnord, Andorra. The Canadian women鈥檚 team is led by two-time world champion Catharine Pendrel, who began her career in Victoria . . . The downhill is the pure-speed, adrenaline-pumping mountain-bike discipline and the veteran Steve Smith from Cassidy, the 2013 UCI World Cup champion, and Mark Wallace of Duncan will represent sa国际传媒 at the UCI worlds in Andorra . . . Rob Britton and Adam de Vos of Victoria have been named to the sa国际传媒 roster for the Quebec City and Montreal Grand Prix road cycling races Sept. 11 and 13, with the rising de Vos also qualifying in U-23 for the 2015 UCI world road championships Sept. 19-27 in Richmond, Virginia . . . Desirae Ridenour of Cowichan Bay won junior women鈥檚 gold and Hannah Henry of Victoria silver Saturday at the Apple Triathlon in Kelowna.
