HIGH ACHIEVERS: World gold-medallist Wendy Alexis eyeing global age-group 100-metre record

By Martin Cleary

Track sprinter Wendy Alexis will celebrate a milestone birthday in her need-for-speed life, when she reaches 70 years old in late March, 2025.

There’s no need for presents, though. Alexis will take care of that as she has something special in mind that only she can handle along with her coach and physiotherapist.

“I want that world record,” Alexis said with gusto in a recent phone interview. “I have wanted to do this for a long time.”

For the past 20 years, the dedicated Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club masters sprinter has been focused on training, injury recovery and associating with wholesome people with like interests. The end result for her has been a vast array of medals from world championships, Pan-Am Games, other international meets as well as Canadian and Ontario titles.

But one thing has been missing, a world record time in her age group.

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In masters athletics, whether it’s track, field or multiple events, athletes compete against each other in five-year increments to keep the competition as fair as possible.

By turning 70 in early spring next year, she’ll be the youngest in her age class, which stretches to 74 years old. Being ‘a young 70’ allows Alexis to have the greatest chance of mowing down any world, national or provincial marks in the record book.

Sometime in 2025, Alexis would like to settle into the starting blocks for the 100 metres, have a smooth run with a tailwind of 2.0 metres per second or less and cross the finish line faster than 14.70 seconds. That world-record performance would be the best birthday gift of all and a huge highlight on her well-decorated career.

Alexis has attended four outdoor and three indoor world championships since 2010. Competing in the 60, 100 and 200 metres as well as the occasional relay, she has earned 14 world championship medals – six gold, five silver and three bronze.

A world record would be a huge exclamation point in a track career that she rebooted at age 50, after not qualifying for the 1972 Canadian Olympic team. Subsequent leg injuries in the early 1970s left her with a medical diagnosis that she might never run again.

“So many times a world record has been within my realm,” said Alexis, a retired school teacher, adding injuries or the COVID-19 pandemic denied her that moment of glory.

“I want that time, a world record next year. I have to get that world record.”

For a few minutes, Alexis thought she had equalled the women’s 65-69 100-metre world record of 13.91 seconds in a rare meet held during COVID. But an illegal tailwind of 3.0 metres per second erased that joyful moment.

That record belongs to Toronto’s Karla Del Grande, who was voted the female athlete of the decade (2010-19) by the World Masters Athletics Association. Del Grande also owns the women’s 70-74 100-metre world record at 14.70 seconds.

When Alexis races in the women’s 70-74 class next year, she’ll be running against the older Del Grande as she has done in past years. While Alexis and Del Grande have developed a strong friendship and respect for each other over the years, they are intense competitors when they step onto the track and into their lanes for a race.

“I’m confident I can get her (world) record,” Alexis added.

“Karla is such a fierce competitor, such a good friend. But she is stronger over the longer races (200 and 400 metres). I think I have a bit of an advantage in the 60 and 100 metres, but who knows. She’s always there.”

At the recent 2024 world masters athletics championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, Del Grande, 71, set the world record in the women’s 70-74 class 100 metres at 13.70 seconds and placed second in the 200 metres in a season-best 30.89 seconds.

Alexis, 69, had matching medal performances in the same sprint events, but in the women’s 65-69 division. Running into strong winds, she became the 100-metre world champion in 14.46 seconds and was second in the 200-metre final in a wind-aided 30.81 seconds.

The world championships were a demanding competition for her with three races over 100 metres (heat, semifinal and final), another three for the 200 metres (heat, semifinal and final) and one relay race.

She was worried if she could survive that many races in five days. Six months earlier, she suffered a small Grade 1 tear of the hamstring muscle in her left leg.

But a carefully crafted physiotherapy strategy by physiotherapist Theo Calligeris along with a proper training plan by Lions coach Sean Burges allowed the dedicated Alexis to have a later start and a triumphant finish to her outdoor season.

“I was concerned. I wasn’t sure how my hamstring would stand up. I don’t often get nervous, but it factored in,” she said. “I hadn’t gone to worlds since 2018. Oh my gosh, I can’t put all that work in and not get there.

“It has been a long time since I have run three rounds (for each of the 100 and 200 metres). It has been 15 years since I’ve done that.”

In 2018, Alexis suffered a major Grade 3 hamstring tear, which kept her off the track for one year and threw up flags that she may not be able to return to sprinting.

After she won the 100 metres for the sixth world championship gold medal of her career, Alexis felt a huge weight was lifted from her shoulders.

“I was relieved. I also was grateful – grateful to do what I do and with the people I do it with. You always hope the work you put in will have some reward at the end.

“I know I’m capable of winning, but sometimes it’s hard to do, hard to do what you think you can do.”

As for the 200 metres, it’s a race she loves to hate.

“I don’t even like it, but I wasn’t going all the way to Sweden to run one race. I like the 200, when it’s over. I’m still learning how to run it,” Alexis admitted.

When Alexis completed her seventh world championship experience, she was grateful for what she accomplished and thankful for the knowledge and care of coach Burges and physiotherapist Calligeris, since they devised incredible plans to get her back on the track and winning world medals.

At the end of the 2023 summer season, Alexis was happy to see her times were coming down. She carried that momentum into the 2024 indoor season, which went well until she tore her hamstring at a small meet. As a result, she was forced to withdraw from the United States national masters championships.

“I’ve been training with my coach for a couple of years,” she said. “I had my coach tell me that I’ll be ready when I need to be ready. I was concerned my times were not what I wanted them to be. My coach said you don’t need to run those times now.

“Every time I ran, I chipped away at my time before. He was right that everything happens when it happens. The start of my season was better than I thought it would be. My times weren’t incredibly fast, but fast enough to win.”

Burges was able to bring Alexis into championship form because Calligeris put her on various exercise programs for her to recover from her hamstring injury. She was training up to 90 minutes a day, which allowed for a smooth transition back to sprinting, despite lost track training time.

“He is the best therapist. If not for him, I wouldn’t be running. He put me back on track,” a grateful Alexis said.

“He has experience and expertise like we have never seen before. His knowledge is unbelievable.”

Calligeris is a former director and chief physiotherapist of the Sports Sciences Physiotherapy Centre at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. He attended the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics for his country.

“You must depend on the team around you. We step on the track to do what we do, but they put us in that position.”

Part of that team is her teammates with the Ottawa Lions. Alexis is the most senior member of her sprint group as her training partners range in age from 17 years old to mid 20s with one 30-year-old.

When Alexis returned to the Terry Fox Athletic Facility track after her world championships, she received a hero’s welcome with a poster and ‘World Champion Wendy’ cookies.

“They’re my friends. I could be their grandmother. I’m lucky to hang out with people that age. I don’t want to train and compete just with masters’ athletes. It’s nice to be part of the entire sport.

“It’s really amazing to be part of the sport and not relegated to the sidelines. I’m right there doing the workouts (with them).”