What to watch at the track and field world championships this weekend

This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.

The World Athletics Championships are underway at Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus. Here are the top Canadian contenders to watch today and over the weekend, highlighted by the country's biggest track star attempting to keep his remarkable podium streak alive in the sport's marquee event:

Andre De Grasse in the men's 100m (heats tonight at 9:50 p.m. ET, semifinals Saturday at 9 p.m. ET, final Saturday at 10:50 p.m. ET)

Dating back to the surprising 100m bronze he won at his world championships debut in 2015, De Grasse has entered seven individual events at the worlds or Olympics and reached the podium in all seven of them. His best event is the 200m — De Grasse took silver at the 2016 Olympics and the 2019 worlds before winning his first Olympic gold in the 200 last summer in Tokyo — but he's been consistently among the planet's best in the 100m as well, taking bronze at the 2015 and '19 worlds and at the last two Summer Olympics.

The 7-for-7 podium streak might be in danger, though. Slowed by a foot injury and, more recently, a bout of COVID-19 that he says hit him pretty hard, the 27-year-old has yet to crack 10 seconds in the 100m this year. The competition at worlds will be fierce, with defending champion Christian Coleman of the United States raring to go after a suspension for missing too many drug tests kept him out of the Tokyo Olympics. Italy's Lamont Marcell Jacobs will be looking to prove his surprise Olympic gold was no fluke, and Olympic silver medallist Fred Kerley ran a world-leading 9.76 three weeks ago at the U.S. championships on this very