It has been a day of mixed emotions for Richmond’s World Championship-competing athletes in Budapest, Hungary.
Stealing the show for Canada on Thursday was Richmond’s own Camryn Rogers, who sailed to a glorious gold medal in the hammer throw to claim her first world title and be the first Canadian female athlete to win a World gold since Perdita Felicien in 2003.
“I feel over the moon … just so happy. At this point, I’m just speechless,” Rogers told Athletics Canada after her gold-winning 77.02 metres on her first throw.
“Immediately afterwards, it was this moment of ‘What just happened?’, not being able to fully believe it.”
Rogers led from start to finish, her first throw setting an unattainable standard the rest of the field could not equal, with her also having the 2nd, 3rd and 4th longest throws of the final.
“Going into such a stacked field, with some of the best throwers in world history, who also are the most wonderful and incredible people as well,” Rogers said to Athletics Canada.
“I feel like tonight I was able to execute the plan that my coach and I have been working on for so long, and it’s such a good feeling to see it all come to fruition.”
Meanwhile, Richmond’s other athletics star, racewalker Evan Dunfee, narrowly missed out on the podium once more, this time in the 35 km event.
The 2020 Tokyo Games 50 km Olympic bronze medalist scored a 4th place finish in the 20 km race walk on the first day of the championships last Saturday.
And he had to fight through the pain barrier again on Thursday – to score a season’s best time of 2:25:28 in the 35 km race.
“After the 20 km – I’m getting older – and my hamstring was really bugging me,” a heartbroken Dunfee told Athletics Canada.
“We did an amazing job to get it as good as we could and it felt pretty good for most of the race.
“Then at 32 km, it just went pop. I thought I was done. I didn’t know if I was going to finish. To finish 4th again is absolutely heartbreaking. I wanted to go medal or broke and I guess I went broke.”
Dunfee has a habit of finishing just outside the medals in major races, having done at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
