Canada's Marco Arop eager to showcase versatility at track and field nationals

A confident and healthy Marco Arop is ready for a fresh challenge at the Canadian track and field championships this weekend in Ottawa.

Instead of racing for a fifth consecutive title in the men’s 800 metres, he will compete in the 1,500 at Terry Fox Athletic Facility on Saturday at 7:07 p.m. ET.

Arop is grateful to be performing on the track, given how his body felt at the end of last season.

A right Achilles tendon injury that hampered him for much of 2025 lingered into the off-season, raising doubt about the 27-year-old’s availability for a 2026 campaign without a World Athletics Championships or Olympics.

“I wasn’t confident I would be able to race this year. I think running through [an injury] all season made it worse [and] I had to take my time [to let it heal]. It’s much better now and I’m feeling really good to do either [distance],” Arop said this week from his home training base in Starkville, Miss.

He gave a nod to longtime physiotherapist Marilou Lamy and Dr. Beatrice Deschenes St-Pierre, an Alberta-based sports medicine physician, “for getting me prepared to race again.

“Dealing with the injury and not having run 800s or fast for a while, I wanted to open [the season in] the event I was most comfortable with and that gave me confidence.”

Chris Woods, Arop’s coach, said the middle-distance runner only started wearing track spikes two or three days before finishing second at the June 7 Stockholm Diamond League in one minute 43.11 seconds, the fastest season-opening time of his career. Three days later, Arop was third in 1:43.33 at the Bislett Games in Oslo, Norway.

WATCH | Arop 3rd behind Cooper Lutkenhaus, Emmanuel Wanyonyi in Oslo:

Edmonton's Marco Arop finishes 3rd in Diamond League Oslo 800m race