2018

2018

The two-day meet was highlighted by another staging of the Pacific World Cup, this time a Canada-China Sprint Challenge featuring men and women racing at 100 metres, 400 metres and in 4×100 and 4×400 relays. Canada won the Cup 139 to 100, with the country’s top male sprinters putting an exclamation point on the victory by capturing the 4×100 relay in a meet record time of 38.42 seconds.

Gavin Smellie, who won the 200 metres in 20.72 only a half-hour earlier, ran the lead leg in the cool evening conditions, with Aaron Brown and Bolande Ajomale following before triple 2016 Olympic medalist Andre De Grasse anchored the impressive run. The old mark of 38.59 was set in 1993 by an American foursome that included the legendary Carl Lewis.

China won the women’s 4×100 in a meet record time of 43.75 to Canada’s 44.30, but Canada had already clinched the Sprint Challenge by finishing first, second and third in the women’s 400 and first, second and fourth in the men’s 400.