With the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo just four months away, Athletics Canada unveiled the first wave of athletes set to represent Team Canada in Japan. On Tuesday, eight athletes were officially named to the world championship roster, led by Canadian marathon record holders Cam Levins and Natasha Wodak.
The marathon qualification window for Tokyo 2025 closed on May 4, finalizing Canada’s full marathon squad of six. Headlining the men’s team is Levins, who has found great success in Japan, including his North American marathon record of 2:05:36 at the 2023 Tokyo Marathon, where he finished fifth.
The men’s marathon team
Joining Levins on the men’s team is 2024 Canadian marathon champion Justin Kent, and his training partner Ben Preisner. Kent and Preisner train together in Vancouver under coach Richard Lee and previously represented Canada in the marathon at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, placing 28th and 30th, respectively.
Athletics Canada had a tough choice for the Canadian marathon team in Tokyo, with six men within the World Athletics selection quota after the May 4 deadline. Calgary’s Rory Linkletter had the highest ranking spot (50th), but he turned down a team spot to shift his focus to a potential fall marathon major. “It was a choice I made with my coach and agent,” says Linkletter. “Four years (in a row) of competing at global championships is a lot, and it’s a tight turnaround from the spring I’ve had.”
Linkletter is coming off a sixth-place finish at the 2025 Boston Marathon, where he clocked the second-fastest marathon time in Canadian history (2:07:02). The 28-year-old is also slated to run the Ottawa Marathon on May 25. Former Canadian marathon champion Thomas Broatch and 2:10 marathoner Tristan Woodfine were the two other runners in the selection quota not chosen for the team.
The women’s marathon team
On the women’s side, the selection process was more straightforward, as only three athletes were within quota. Wodak returns for her second consecutive World Championships, coming off a 15th-place finish in Budapest—the top Canadian result from the event.
She’ll be joined by Malindi Elmore, who locked in her spot with a 2:26:05 at the 2024 Valencia Marathon, and Leslie Sexton, who rounds out the women’s team. Sexton, from Vancouver, hasn’t raced a marathon since finishing seventh at the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon last fall, but she has had previous success at worlds with a 13th-place finish at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore.
Beyond the marathon team, race walker Evan Dunfee and 10,000m standout Moh Ahmed were also named to the roster. Dunfee, the current world record holder in the men’s 35 km race walk, will be looking to bounce back after narrowly missing the podium in both the 20 km and 35 km events in Budapest. Earlier this year, Dunfee set a world record (in the 35km distance) in Dudince, Slovakia.
Additional team members in the 10,000m and 35 km race walk events may still be added when Athletics Canada announces the remainder of the Tokyo 2025 team on Aug. 28.
