Track runner Foster Malleck eclipses Cam Levins's Canadian indoor 2,000m best

More and more, Foster Malleck is showing he can hang with the world’s top runners.

The Kitchener, Ont., native was fifth on the track in the men’s 2,000m at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix.

Malleck’s time of four minutes 54.08 seconds eclipses Cam Levins’s 4:55.35 Canadian indoor best from 2014, but Athletics Canada doesn’t recognize the distance as a record.

“Awesome run, congratulations,” Levins, a three-time Olympian and the national record holder in the men’s marathon, said on Instagram.

Hobbs Kessler of the United States won Saturday in 4:48.79, crushing the world record of 4:49.99 by more than a second, while Calgary-born Grant Fisher followed in 4:49.48 to also sneak under the former world mark.

Great Britain’s Jake Wightman, who won the outdoor 1,500 at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, was fourth (4:53.69).

“Today gave me confidence that I’m able to run with the top guys,” the 24-year-old Malleck told Canadian Running magazine after the race, adding he’s striving for Kessler and Fisher’s level of success. Fisher, who was raised in Michigan, won bronze medals in the 5,000 and 10,000 at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

On Jan. 10, Malleck covered two kilometres in the opening leg of the 4x2 km relay at the recent world cross-country championships in 5:19, six seconds behind Kenya’s Reynold Cheruiyot, the reigning world 1,500 bronze medallist.

Outdoors last year, Malleck’s 3:32.38 performance in the 1,500 at La Classique de Montréal on Aug. 6 earned him a spot with Canada’s world championship team and placed him second among Canadian men all-time in the distance.

Canada's Foster Malleck crashes and falls in the 1,500m at the worlds

Kevin Sullivan’s national record of 3:31.71 has stood for 26 years. But in