Toronto Waterfront Marathon 'building block' for Canadian Elmore's ultimate goal of Paris Olympics

Last week's unveiling of the 2024 Paris Olympics marathon route took Malindi Elmore back 21 years.

In 2001, she was struggling as a runner at Stanford University in California and left the team to study for a semester in downtown Paris for her degree in international relations and French literature.

Elmore lived outside the city in Vincennes, a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs where she joined a track club and ran with some locals during her downtime.

The Olympic marathon route is designed to salute women and modelled on the path of the October 1789 Women's March on Versailles when thousands looked for King Louis XVI to demand flour as a shortage risked the production of bread, starving the Parisian people.

"Paris has so much history," Elmore said this week from her home in Kelowna, B.C. before flying east to run the Toronto Waterfront Marathon for the first time on Sunday. "This route is more than just a running course. There's real history here if you think of 5,000 women who marched hundreds of years ago to demand more from their leaders.

"I spent so much time on my own exploring the streets and in the museums learning about all the leaders that came out of that city and all the movements."

The move to France also represented a make or break time in her running career. "I rediscovered running on my own terms. When I came back to [the United States] I was renewed in my running."

Elmore went on to place fourth on the track in the mile at the 2002 NCAA indoor championships, one year before winning the conference indoor mile and setting school outdoor records in the 800 and 1,500 metres. After graduating, she made her 2004 Olympic debut in Athens and was 37th in the 1,500.

Elmore retired from