Elmore, Levins 1st Canadians nominated for early selection to Olympic marathon team

Malindi Elmore and Cam Levins are heading to Paris this summer.

Athletics Canada announced the two marathon runners earned early nominations to represent Canada at the Olympics. It will be the third Olympic appearance for both athletes.

Elmore, of Kelowna, B.C., made her Olympic debut at the 2004 Athens Games in the 1,500 metres and retired in 2012 before returning to competition in 2019 to compete in the marathon.

The 43-year-old achieved the Olympic qualifying standard with a personal-best time of two hours 23 minutes 30 seconds at the Berlin Marathon last September. Elmore finished ninth at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

"I never expected, even as recently as five years ago, that I'd make two more Olympics. My life had moved on, I had moved on from running, as well," Elmore said in statement released by Athletics Canada. "To become a three-time Olympian sounds kind of legit now."

After graduating from Stanford University in California, she made her Olympic debut and was 37th in the 1,500 in Greece.

Following retirement, Elmore reinvented herself as a marathon runner. In January 2020, she set the Canadian record in her second race, clocking 2:24:50 in Houston to clinch her spot on the Olympic team for Tokyo.

It was 42 C on Aug. 6, 2021 for the Olympic marathon held outside Tokyo in Sapporo, where Elmore covered the 42.2-kilometre race in 2:30:59 for ninth, the best finish by a Canadian woman in a non-boycott Games.

In 2022, Natasha Wodak lowered Elmore's Canadian record, stopping the clock in 2:23:12 in the Berlin Marathon, five weeks before the Olympic qualifying window opened for Paris.

"I've learned so much over the last 20 years about training and racing and the work that goes into it," Elmore said, "that I feel really