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As far as podium appearances go, Canada’s track and field athletes have been pretty consistent at the big global championships so far this decade. They won six medals at the 2021 Olympics, four at the 2022 world championships, six at the 2023 worlds and five at the 2024 Olympics.
I feel like we can expect about that same level of production at this year’s world championships in Tokyo, where all five of Canada’s reigning world or Olympic champions will be competing.
In case you need a refresher, those are world and Olympic hammer throw gold medallists Ethan Katzberg and Camryn Rogers; men’s 800m world champ (and Olympic silver medallist) Marco Arop; decathlon world champ Pierce LePage; and, of course, the Olympic-champion men’s 4x100m relay team of Andre De Grasse, Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brendon Rodney.
The Trackside hosts pick their podium favourites for some of the biggest matchups heading into the world athletics championships in Tokyo.
A pair of silver medallists from the 2023 worlds — shot putter Sarah Mitton and decathlete Damian Warner, a former Olympic champ — are also in the hunt for more hardware in Tokyo. The only Canadian medallist from the most recent world championships or Olympics who won’t compete is pole vaulter Alysha Newman, who’s been sidelined since May.
But it’s always good to compare your gut feelings to some hard data. With that in mind, we once again reached out to our friends at Shoreview Sports Analytics, who helped us handicap those big Summer McIntosh vs. Katie Ledecky showdowns at the swimming world championships in July. For this exercise, they simulated each event at the upcoming track and field worlds 10,000 times, using past results for each athlete.
Shoreview’s statistical model predicts Canada will win three gold and five total medals in Tokyo — pretty much in line with the country’s recent results at the majors. But some context is required, especially around that fifth medal.
So, let’s take a look at the projected Canadian medallists, plus a few notable non-medallists, and add a bit of human intuition to the mix.
Ethan Katzberg (men’s hammer throw)
Shoreview projection: Gold
Medal probability: 89.5%
Katzberg is the Canadian most likely to win a medal, according to the model. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine him missing the podium. The 23-year-old is the reigning world and Olympic champion and has finished no worse than second in eight international starts this year, including five wins.
However, all of those victories came in May and June, and Katzberg lost his last two events to Hungary’s Bence Halasz, the 2024 Olympic silver medallist. So another gold is no lock.
Camryn Rogers (women’s hammer throw)
Shoreview projection: Gold
Medal probability: 74.8%
The model isn’t quite as confident about Rogers medalling in Tokyo, but I am. The reigning world and Olympic champ has won eight of her nine international starts this year, including the last six in a row, and she placed second in the other one.
As for the gold, Rogers could face a challenge from American Brooke Andersen. The 2022 world champ has the two best throws of the year.
Evan Dunfee (men’s 35km race walk)
Shoreview projection: Gold
Medal probability: 74.1%
A bronze medallist in the 50km race walk at both the 2019 world championships and the 2021 Olympics, Dunfee has stayed in contention in the shorter distances now used at the majors. He placed fourth in the 20km and 35km events at the 2023 worlds and fifth in the Olympic 20km in Paris last summer. This year, he broke the North American record in the 20K and the world record in the 35.
The 35K record now belongs to Italy’s Massimo Stano, the Olympic 20K gold medallist in 2021 and 35K world champ in 2022. But Stano is out with a hamstring injury, and double reigning world champion Alvaro Martin of Spain is now retired, clearing Dunfee’s path to his first global title.
Along with Dunfee’s projected gold in the 35K, the Shoreview model has him placing fourth in the 20K, with about a 30 per cent chance of winning a medal. So two podiums in Tokyo are well within Dunfee’s reach.
Sarah Mitton (women’s shot put)
Shoreview projection: Silver
Medal probability: 55.7%
After taking silver at the 2023 world championships, Mitton has scored some big wins over the past couple years, including back-to-back indoor world titles and the 2024 Diamond League championship. But she fouled out of the rainy Paris Olympic final as the gold-medal favourite and placed third at last month’s Diamond League Final after illegally stumbling out of the throwing circle on her apparent winning toss.
Those might sound like careless mistakes, but the women’s shot put competition is so fierce these days that you can’t afford to play it safe. Two-time reigning world champion Chase Jackson of the United States didn’t even get past qualifying at the Olympics after fouling on her first two attempts.
The Shoreview model likes Jackson to three-peat in Tokyo, but the long list of potential challengers also includes Diamond League champion Jessica Schilder of the Netherlands, Olympic gold medallists Lijiao Gong of China and Yemisi Ogunleye of Germany, and 2024 Olympic silver medallist Maddi Wesche of New Zealand.
Pierce LePage (men’s decathlon)
Shoreview projection: Bronze
Medal probability: 31.5%
This is by far the most fragile of Shoreview’s projected Canadian medals. On one hand, the model picks LePage to take bronze. On the other, it gives him less than a 1-in-3 chance of winning a medal. This speaks to the inscrutability of the decathlon, which is contested so infrequently that there’s a dearth of data to feed the model.
In LePage’s case, there’s even less. Since winning gold at the 2023 world championships, he’s finished exactly zero decathlons. A back injury forced him out of the Paris Olympics, and he withdrew from this year’s prestigious Hypo Meeting in Austria after tripping on a knocked-over hurdle.
This is where a good modeler knows to adjust the dials a bit. Shoreview co-founder Mike Heenan says that if he ran the decathlon simulations the same way he does for the other events, LePage wouldn’t even appear on the leaderboard because he has no complete results from the last two years. But, by applying what statisticians call a “decay factor,” Heenan was able to include LePage’s 2023 world title without weighing it as heavily as a more current gold.
As you can see in the chart below, the level of decay one chooses to apply to that result can greatly influence the projection for Tokyo. But Heenan thinks (and I agree) that a sort of middle ground of 2 per cent seems reasonable, so that’s what we’re going with.
Adjusting the decay factor doesn’t have nearly as much impact on the rest of the field, including Canada’s Damian Warner. The model has the 2021 Olympic champion and 2023 worlds silver medallist just missing the podium at age 35.
Marco Arop (men’s 800m)
Shoreview projection: 4th
Medal probability: 28.5%
This one surprised me. But the reigning world champ and 2024 Olympic silver medallist hasn’t looked as sharp this year. After starting his season on the ill-fated Grand Slam Track tour, Arop had two fifth-place finishes and a runner-up on the Diamond League circuit before placing third at last month’s Final.
I was also surprised that the model picked Algeria’s Djamel Sedjati for gold over Olympic champ Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya, who won five of his seven Diamond League starts this year, including his third straight Final.
Heenan explained that the model uses the average of all of the athletes’ times over the last two seasons, with the slowest one dropped, which gave Sedjati a slight edge even though Wanyonyi has the higher ceiling. But, in a race as tactically nuanced as the 800, it could be a mistake to rely so heavily on times. I’ll bet on the guy with the most wins.
Andre De Grasse, Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney (men’s 4x100m)
Shoreview projection: 6th
Medal probability: 24.1%
This one hurts. The Canadian quartet’s stunning gold-medal victory in Paris was the best moment of those Olympics, and you also had to love their big upset win over the U.S. on the Americans’ own track at the 2022 world championships in Eugene, Ore. These guys have really delivered for Canada on the biggest stages, and it would be great to see them do it again.
But the Shoreview model has Canada finishing well off the podium — behind the defending-champion United States, led by Olympic and world 100m champ Noah Lyles; Olympic bronze medallist Great Britain; Jamaica, featuring Olympic solo runner-up Kishane Thompson; Olympic silver medallist South Africa; and even Ghana.
If we’ve learned anything about the relay, though, it’s that it’s a crapshoot. Each baton exchange is so fraught with danger that anything can go wrong — and often does for the United States, whose sloppiness did them in at the Paris Olympics while the Canadians’ superb chemistry carried them to the surprise victory.
Based on historical data, Heenan says he assigned every team a 10 per cent chance of DNFing or fumbling the baton so badly that they can’t recover — except for the error prone U.S. and Jamaica, who he assigned a 25 per cent chance. Even with that adjustment, the model gives the Americans a 74 per cent chance of medalling. So, essentially, they’re almost guaranteed to get on the podium as long as they don’t beat themselves.
Some other notable projections
The Canadian men’s 4x100m relay squad may have to lean on its teamwork again as none of the guys are projected to even sniff the podium in their solo races. The Shoreview model ranks De Grasse 14th in the 100m, with just a 3.3 per cent shot at a medal, while Blake is 25th (0.4 per cent).
Surprisingly, the model picks Jamaica’s Oblique Seville to win the 100 over Thompson, American Kenny Bednarek and Lyles, who was sidelined for three months before returning in July. I think the model is underrating Lyles because of that absence, but Seville did beat him handily in their last two Diamond League matchups with impressive times of 9.86 and 9.87 seconds.
Lyles is projected to win his third straight 200m world title over Bednarek (after their spicy confrontation at the U.S. trials) and Olympic champ Letsile Tebogo of Botswana. The model ranks De Grasse seventh, giving the 2021 Olympic champ just a 6.2 per cent chance of winning a medal, while Brown is 13th (1.5 per cent).
On the women’s side, American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is projected to beat Olympic champ Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia in the 100m after running the three fastest times of the year. Alfred is projected to win the 200 after taking silver at the Olympics.
More on the world championships
* For more medal predictions, watch the latest episode of CBC Sports’ Trackside with hosts Perdita Felicien and Aaron Brown. NBC Sports analyst Ato Boldon joins the show to make his picks for the sprints.
* If you want to feel something, watch this video essay by the great Chris Jones on the magic of Canada’s 4x100m relay team.
* What does Marco Arop need to do to win another world title? CBC Sports’ Doug Harrison gets the answers from Arop and his coach.
How to watch
Live streaming of the world championships begins this Friday at 7 p.m. ET on CBCSports.ca and CBC Gem and continues through Sept. 21.
Here’s the streaming schedule and here’s the full schedule of events.
