Langley-based runners Regan Yee and Lindsay Carson have been selected to compete at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Denmark for Team Canada next weekend.
Yee and Carson, both members of the Langley Mustangs track and field club, will be on a six-person mixed-gender relay team, a first for Canada.
The eight-kilometre relay will kick-off action in Aarhus, Denmark, on Saturday, March 30.
John Lofranco, head coach of Canada’s IAAF World Cross Country team, said the mixed relay allows more of Canada’s distance runners the opportunity to test themselves against international competition.
“Since all of the athletes on the team have international experience, we strongly believe a top-eight finish is promising even with the world’s most dominate distance running nations taking part,” Lofranco said.
Teams composed of two men and two women will each run one loop of the course, in any order they wish. Runners will pass a wrist band that serves as the baton through a 20-metre long exchange or takeover zone.
In 2017, more than a dozen countries participated in the mixed relay, with Kenya coming out on top in a time of 22:22 over eight kilometres.
READ MORE: Langley runners turn in top performances at University of Washington invitational
Canada will be participating in the mixed relay for the first time in the event’s history and will be led by Regan Yee and fellow middle-distance runner and steeplechaser John Gay.
“I’m both excited and nervous,” Yee told the Langley Advance Times.
“We are going to be racing against some of the world’s very best runners so we definitely have our work cut out for us, but we are sending a very strong team and I know that we will all be keen to put our best effort forward on race day.”
Gay noted the World Cross Country Championships have been described as the “greatest footrace on earth.”
“As a steeplechase specialist, the distance and terrain will cater well to my strengths,” Gay said.
Runners face 75 metres of elevation, looping through grass and open woodland that will see athletes pass through sand pits and mud, before it takes the runners up the steep grass roof of the Moesgaard Museum.
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