Monday May 29, 2023
Moh Ahmed stopped the clock at 28 minutes 21.1 seconds to win the Ottawa 10K on Saturday for his first Canadian 10K Championships title.
Also making his debut in the race was Canadian marathon/half marathon record holder Cam Levins of Black Creek, B.C., who finished second with a time of 28:39.1. Jeremy Coughler (29:31.1) completed the podium.
The Ottawa course record is 27:24, held by Deriba Merga of Ethiopia since 2009.
Vancouver resident Natasha Wodak topped the women's standings by racing the distance in 32:51 for back-to-back titles and a third overall, having won in 2019.
Leslie Sexton of Markham, Ont., settled for silver with a time of 33:13.0. Quebec's Caroline Pomerleau (33:16.1) earned bronze.
The victory marked the 32-year-old Ahmed's first road race since he ran the 5K and 8K as a high schooler in St. Catharines, Ont.
He showed no ill effects from a minor hamstring issue over the winter while training at altitude in Flagstaff, Ariz.
The 2020 Olympic silver medallist in the 5,000 will race the event at his Diamond League season opener June 2 at the Golden Gala meet in Florence, Italy, followed by subsequent 5,000s on the professional track and field circuit in Monaco (July 21) and Zurich (Aug. 31).
In between, the Canadian record holder in the 5,000 and 10,000 will double at the Aug. 19-27 worlds in Budapest, Hungary, and hopes to end his season at the Sept. 16-17 Prefontaine Classic, host of the Diamond League Final in Eugene.
"I'm feeling good, training hard," Ahmed, who became Canada's first Olympic medallist in the 5,000 at the Summer Games in Tokyo, told CBC Sports recently. "I'm doing the same stuff [I did] when I ran 12:47.20 [in July 2020 for a personal best and then-North American record]."
In 2022, Ben Flanagan of Kitchener, Ont., raced to his second straight men's title and holds the national 10K record of 28:11, set last year in Boston.
Levins, 34, used Saturday's race to prepare for the Canadian half marathon championships on June 18 in Winnipeg . He won a year ago, setting a course record of one hour three minutes 23 seconds before the race was called due to the heat.
Three months ago, Levins ran a men's national record of 1:00:18 to win the half marathon title at the First Half event in Vancouver.
He set a personal best in the Tokyo Marathon on March 5, finishing fifth while setting a North American record of 2:05:36, lowering his previous Canadian mark of 2:07:09.
In February, Athletics Canada named Levins and four athletes to its team ahead of others for this year's worlds but he withdrew recently, saying he wants to devise a different race plan leading up to the Paris Olympics next summer "mostly because it's a difficult course."
"There will be another marathon [for me] in the fall," he said. "I just can't say [which one] because I'm working out a contract [with the organizers].
"The focus is pretty much entirely on the Olympics now, doing everything I can to be as good as I can on that start line."