Toronto’s Lucia Stafford had a great begin to her 2024 marketing campaign on Saturday. The 25-year-old middle-distance runner kicked off her season on the John Terrier Traditional at Boston College, successful and setting a brand new private finest over 800m indoors. Hours later, she added one other victory within the girls’s 1,000m.
On the anniversary of her record-setting 1,000m race final 12 months on the identical meet, Stafford returned to proceed her string of stable performances. She kicked off her 2024 season with a private finest within the girls’s 800m, successful the race in 2:01.79, surpassing American Roisin Willis within the last 50 metres. Stafford improved on her earlier indoor 800m private finest of two:11.28 from 2015. Canadian 800m Olympian Madeleine Kelly took third in 2:02.38.
Three hours later, Stafford returned to the observe at Boston College, efficiently defending her title within the girls’s 1,000m. Taking management of the race from 400m onwards, she received handily in 2:39.62 forward of Kelly (2:40.15) and Addy Townsend of Coquitlam, B.C., who set a brand new private finest of two:40.48.
🗣️: “On the finish of the day, you need to simply race.”
Lucia Stafford breaks down her 2:01.79 800m win on the John Thomas Terrier Traditional.
Full interview: https://t.co/KmJomnENn1#BUTerrierClassic pic.twitter.com/cd8CeRNbH7
— FloTrack (@FloTrack) January 27, 2024
Stafford confronted adversity on the finish of her 2023 season after her successes on the 2022 Commonwealth Video games and the Tokyo Olympics, the place she reached the ultimate within the 1,500m occasions. Regardless of being ranked inside the highest 20 for the occasion heading into the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, she didn’t advance past the heats, ending seventh, with solely the highest six transferring into the semi-final.
The reigning Canadian 1,500m champion made a major change in her coaching forward of the 2024 Olympic 12 months, relocating from her hometown of Toronto to British Columbia. This transfer brings her nearer to her sister, Gabriela, and brother, Nick (who each dwell on Vancouver Island) and supplies her with a extra beneficial local weather for coaching year-round.
Stafford goals to construct on her spectacular begin on the New Stability Indoor Grand Prix this Sunday, the place she’s going to face her sister within the girls’s 1,500m. Having already secured the usual for subsequent month’s World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, she appears to decrease her indoor better of 4:04.29.
