What you need to know about Team Canada at the 2025 World Athletics Championships
It’s time for track and field!
The World Athletics Championships will take place in Tokyo, Japan from September 13 to 21. The meet will welcome more than 2000 of the world’s top athletes from over 200 countries to compete for the coveted title of “World Champion.”
The first iteration of the World Athletics Championships was held in Helsinki, Finland in 1983. Tokyo last hosted the event in 1991, though the main stadium will be familiar to many athletes, having served as the athletics venue for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
There are 49 events on the programme and 147 medals will be awarded over the nine days of competition. Hopefully quite a few of them will be awarded to Canadian athletes. Team Canada includes 12 medallists from past World Athletics Championships, 11 Olympic medallists, 37 World Athletics Championships veterans, and 22 athletes making their world championship debuts.
Here are some of the names to keep an eye on.
Throws
The stage is set for Canada to prove itself once again to be a “Big Throws Nation.” Canadian hammer throw phenoms Camryn Rogers and Ethan Katzberg will both take to the throwing circle to defend their world championship titles and both will do so as reigning Olympic champions. How about that?
READ: Canada is a throwing powerhouse as Katzberg, Rogers, and Mitton eye World Athletics Championships
Sarah Mitton will be one to look out for in the women’s shot put. While Mitton was kept off the podium at Paris 2024, her history as the 2023 World silver medallist as well as her 2024 and 2025 World Indoor Championship titles more than qualify her as a podium threat.
Sprints
Count out the Canadian sprinters (like American sprinter Noah Lyles did at Paris 2024) at your own peril.
Team Canada’s Olympic gold medal-winning men’s 4x100m relay team will be running it back in Tokyo and looking once again for the magic that Andre DeGrasse, Aaron Brown, Brendon Rodney, and Jerome Blake are so good at conjuring in the biggest of moments. Their current Canadian record of 37.48 was set when they won gold at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
The quartet of Sade McCreath, Jacqueline Madogo, Marie-Éloïse Leclair, and Audrey Leduc ran a Canadian record time of 42.46 to finish fifth at the World Athletics Relays in early May. Twenty-six year-old Leduc has been rewriting the record books when it comes to Canadian women’s sprinting. She lowered the national record in the 100m in July, racing to a time of 10.94. Leduc also owns the national record in the 200m at 22.36, set in May 2024.
Middle Distance
Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist Marco Arop will defend his world championship title in a stacked field in the men’s 800m. Will he try to lead from the front, or sit and kick? Arop has proven he can win both ways.
READ: Marco Arop ready for title defence at the 2025 World Athletics Championships
Savannah Sutherland is having a standout season, winning her second NCAA women’s 400m hurdles title, breaking both the NCAA and Canadian record in the process with her 52.46 performance. The previous NCAA record belonged to now-world record holder, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Sutherland and McLaughlin-Levrone are the only two NCAA athletes to ever dip under the 53-second mark in the event. Sutherland’s time moved the 22-year-old into the number nine spot on the all-time list.
Gabriela DeBues-Stafford made a triumphant return to the Canadian Championships in July after a tough stretch of injury over the last two years. The 29 year-old took the Canadian titles in both the women’s 1500m and 5000m, locking herself up to double in Tokyo. Younger sister Lucia Stafford will be joining her in the women’s 1500m.
A decade after his world championship debut, Tokyo will be the swan song for 34-year-old Charles Philibert-Thiboutot in the men’s 1500m.
Canada’s hopes in the men’s 3000m steeplechase will rest on Jean-Simon Desgagnés, who made it to the steeple final at Paris 2024. The 27-year-old is fresh off his third straight Canadian title in the event.
Combined Events
Team Canada’s decathletes will be hungry for big performances in Tokyo after disappointment last summer.
Injury sidelined reigning world champion Pierce LePage from competing at Paris 2024, meaning that the 29-year-old will be hungrier than ever to perform on the world stage.
Two-time Olympic medallist (gold at Tokyo 2020, bronze at Rio 2016) Damian Warner will also be keen to lay down a statement performance, after an uncharacteristic no-height in the pole vault at Paris 2024 led him to drop out of the competition. Warner was the world silver medallist in 2023, sharing an epic double Canadian podium with LePage.
Distance
We know that Cam Levins can perform big in Japan. His 2:05.36 personal best, which established a North American area record, is from the 2023 Tokyo Marathon.
Canada’s Queen of Consistency, Natasha Wodak, will toe the line in the women’s marathon, fresh off her 14th national title after winning the Canadian Half Marathon Championships in early August. Wodak posted a 15th place finish at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
Moh Ahmed will be a threat in the men’s 10,000m. Ahmed was narrowly kept off the podium in the event at Paris 2024, finishing fourth by three-tenths of a second. A few days later, Ahmed was tripped in the 5000m heats, the fall causing him to miss making the final. He will also contest the 5000m in Tokyo.
Evan Dunfee’s name has long become synonymous with Canadian race walking excellence, and he is entering the World Athletics Championships in strong form. In March, Dunfee established a world record of 2:21:40 in the men’s 35km race walk . That record was subsequently improved by Italy’s Massimo Stano in May, which suggests that we could be in for some big performances in the event in Tokyo. Dunfee will also compete in the men’s 20km race walk.
How to watch
You can stream the World Athletics Championships on CBC Sports.
Team Canada Roster for World Athletics Championships
| Aaron Brown | Men’s 200m, 4x100m |
| Abdullahi Hassan | Men’s 800m |
| Alyssa Marsh | Women’s 4x400m, Mixed 4x400m |
| Andre De Grasse | Men’s 100m, 200m, 4x100m |
| Audrey Leduc | Women’s 100m, 200m, 4x100m |
| Austin Cole | Mixed 4x400m |
| Ben Preisner | Men’s Marathon |
| Brendon Rodney | Men’s 4x100m |
| Cameron Levins | Men’s Marathon |
| Camryn Rogers | Women’s Hammer Throw |
| Charles Philibert-Thiboutot | Men’s 1500m |
| Christopher Morales Williams | Men’s 400m |
| Damian Warner | Men’s Decathlon |
| Dianna Proctor | Women’s 4x400m, Mixed 4x400m |
| Donna Ntambue | Women’s 4x100m |
| Duan Asemota | Men’s 4x100m |
| Eliezer Adjibi | Men’s 4x100m |
| Emily Martin | Women’s 4x100m |
| Ethan Katzberg | Men’s Hammer Throw |
| Evan Dunfee | Men’s 20km Race Walk, 35km Race Walk |
| Favour Okpali | Women’s 4x400m, Mixed 4x400m |
| Foster Malleck | Men’s 1500m |
| Gabriela Debues-Stafford | Women’s 1500m, 5000m |
| Grace Fetherstonhaugh | Women’s 3000m Steeplechase |
| Grace Konrad | Women’s 4x400m, Mixed 4x400m |
| Jacqueline Madogo | Women’s 4x100m |
| Jasneet Nijjar | Women’s 4x400m, Mixed 4x400m |
| Jazz Shukla | Women’s 800m |
| Jean-Simon Desgagnes | Men’s 3000m Steeplechase |
| Jennifer Elizarov | Women’s Pole Vault |
| Jerome Blake | Men’s 100m, 200m, 4x100m |
| Jillian Weir | Women’s Hammer Throw |
| Julia Tunks | Women’s Discus |
| Justin Kent | Men’s Marathon |
| Justin O’Toole | Men’s 800m |
| Kate Current | Women’s 1500m |
| Kieran Lumb | Men’s 1500m |
| Lauren Gale | Women’s 400m, 4x400m |
| Lucia Stafford | Women’s 1500m |
| Madeline Price | Women’s 4x400m, Mixed 4x400m |
| Maeliss Trapeau | Women’s 800m |
| Malachi Murray | Men’s 4x100m |
| Marco Arop | Men’s 800m |
| Mariam Abdul-Rashid | Women’s 100m Hurdles |
| Marie-Éloïse Leclair | Women’s 4x100m |
| Matthew Erickson | Men’s 800m |
| Michael Roth | Mixed 4x400m |
| Mohammed Ahmed | Men’s 5000m, 10,000m |
| Natasha Wodak | Women’s Marathon |
| Nathan George | Mixed 4x400m |
| Olivia Lundman | Women’s 35km Race Walk |
| Pierce LePage | Men’s Decathlon |
| Regan Yee | Women’s 5000m |
| Rowan Hamilton | Men’s Hammer Throw |
| Sade McCreath | Women’s 100m, 4x100m relay |
| Sarah Mitton | Women’s Shot Put |
| Savannah Sutherland | Women’s 400m Hurdles, 4x400m |
| Tatiana Aholou | Women’s 100m Hurdles |
| Zoe Sherar | Women’s 400m, 4x400m |
