VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds will be well represented at the upcoming World Athletics Championships which get underway July 15 in Eugene, Oregon.
Alumni Evan Dunfee, John Gay, Liz Gleadle, and Natalia Hawthorn will all be representing Canada at the biggest global meet of the season, and the first World Championship since 2019, while two-time NAIA Champion and current T-Bird hammer thrower
Rowan Hamilton will also be trading in the blue and gold for red and white as he competes at his first World Championship.
Fresh off a tremendous spring season that saw him set a new Canadian U-23 hammer throw record of 75.98 metres, Hamilton heads back to the same city in which that record was set, only this time competing in front of thousands of fans and TV cameras from across the globe.
More recently, Hamilton set a new NAIA Championship meet record in Gulf Shores, Alabama with his first-place throw of 74.21 metres. The Chilliwack native will be joined in Eugene by his coach, and UBC throws coach, Garrett Collier and is set to begin competition on the first day of the meet.
Competing at the World Championships is nothing new for race walker Evan Dunfee who won bronze at the 2019 Worlds in Doha, Qatar. Eugene will mark Dunfee's fifth appearance at the World Championships, but the first entrance in the 35 kilometre distance after the IAAF did away with the 50 kilometre event.
Despite the distance change, Dunfee can expect to be considered a strong contender as he holds the Canadian 35 kilometre race walk record which he set at the 2016 Rio Olympics where he finished fourth. Dunfee's race is scheduled for the final day of the meet, Sunday, July 24.
Liz Gleadle is preparing for her fourth World Championships having previously competed in women's javelin in Doha as well as London (2017) and Beijing (2015).
The Canadian record holder since 2015, Gleadle is also a three-time Olympian, having become the first Canadian woman to qualify for a women's javelin Olympic final when she did so in London in 2012.
2015 saw Gleadle claim 11
th in her best finish to date at the World Championships, the same year in which she took gold at the Pan American Games in Toronto.
The former four-time NAIA champion begins competition with qualifying throws on Wednesday, July 20.
John Gay is set to compete in his first World Championships in the men's 3000 metre steeplechase. The former NAIA champ competed at his first Olympic Games in Tokyo last summer where he qualified for the final.
The Kelowna native will step onto the track for the World Championship heats on Friday, July 15 with the final set for three days later.
Also a UBC graduate in 2018, like Gay, Natalia Hawthorn is set to make her World Championships debut in Eugene as she'll compete in the women's 1500 metres.
A native of Bracebridge, Ontario and coached by former UBC assistant Chris Johnson, Hawthorn also made her Olympic debut in Tokyo.
At her final NAIA National Championships with the T-Birds in 2018, Hawthorn anchored the first place women's 4x800 metre relay team while also finishing on the podium in the 800 and 1500 metres.
Hawthorn will compete in a 1500 metre heat on Friday, July 15 with the semifinal the following day and the final race scheduled for Monday, July 18.
The ten-day World Championships run until Sunday, July 24 at the University of Oregon's Hayward Field.
