Canada’s Marco Arop cruised into the men’s 800-metre semifinals on Tuesday at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
Arop, the reigning bronze medallist, made his move to the front of the pack with about 200 metres remaining and never looked back, winning the last of seven heats with a time of one minute 45.05 seconds.
The 24-year-old ran over one second faster to land on the podium at 2022 worlds in Eugene, Ore.
Arop, who was born in Sudan and raised in Edmonton, made his Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 and is the defending Pan Am champion. He’s now the top-ranked 800m racer in the world.
Emmanuel Korir, the reigning Olympic and world champion from Kenya, ran a season-best 1:46.78, but finished fourth in his heat and failed to qualify. The fastest qualifier was fellow Kenyan Emmanuel Wanyoni at 1:44.92.
Canada’s Abdullahi Hassan, making his world championship debut, won’t advance after crossing the finish line fifth in his heat at 1:46.33.
Arop was the second Canadian man to ever medal at worlds in the event after Gary Reed won silver in 2007 in Osaka, Japan.
He’ll return to the track for semis on Thursday. The medal race goes Saturday.
Watch Athletics North every day during the World Athletics Championships on CBCSports.ca and CBC Sports YouTube Channel for a rundown of the day’s top stories and events. Rob Pizzo will be joined by our track and field analysts, including Morgan Campbell, to bring you the latest storylines.
In the women’s 110 hurdles, Canada’s Michelle Harrison advanced to Wednesday’s semifinals with a time of 12.88 seconds.
The 30-year-old Saskatoon native also reached the semifinals last year, but a personal-best clocking of 12.74 seconds wasn’t enough to race for a medal.
Mariam Abdul-Rashid, of Oshawa, Ont., won’t advance with her time of 13.04 seconds.
The final goes on Thursday.
Also, Canadian Savannah Sutherland saw her world championship debut come to an end, placing sixth in her 400 hurdles semifinal at 54.99 seconds and failing to qualify for the medal race.
Sutherland, the 20-year-old from Borden, Sask., competes at the University of Michigan and won the NCAA title in June with a personal-best time of 54.45 seconds.
WATCH | Canadians to know at worlds:
Athletics Canada is sending 50 athletes to the 2023 Worlds Athletics Championships starting August 19th in Budapest, Hungary. Here we preview the Canadian contingent with someone whose done it all before; 3-time multi-sport Olympian Phylicia George.
Heatwave causes change to schedule
Earlier, the start of the women’s 5,000 heats was moved from the morning session Wednesday into the evening because of excessive heat.
With the forecast expected to be around 32 degrees C, World Athletics decided to reschedule for about eight hours later in the day. The switch announced Tuesday also means the heats for the men’s and women’s 200 will be moved up about 30 minutes.
World Athletics uses its own measuring system and determined the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature shows “increases the risk of exertional heat stroke.” WBGT is an international standard for measuring the heat, humidity and thermal stress conditions.
To keep fans cool, organizers handed out free water both inside and outside the stadium. They also distributed hand fans.
For the morning sessions, spectators with tickets in the sunnier sections will be allowed to move to empty seats in the shade.
Live coverage of the entire meet is available on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem through Sunday.
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