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EDMONTON — Marco Arop’s spikes fit perfectly these days and his shorts are appropriate for the track, which is to say the world’s fastest 800-metre man looks the part.
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He wasn’t exactly dressed for success a decade ago during the first high school meet of his career, held at Foote Field in Edmonton.
“Basketball shorts and borrowed spikes that were way too small. That was where it all started,” said Arop, who returns to the scene of his fashion crime on Thursday afternoon to run the 800 metres in the Edmonton Athletics Invitational meet.
“I had my first junior nationals here, too,” he recalled earlier this week. “That was the Olympic trials. That was a funny race because I was so nervous with the crowd. I remember going out in 51 seconds. My 400 personal best was 50-point at the time, so I was basically running a personal best through the 400 and I still had another lap. Struggled. And died.”
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His Edmonton-based coach Ron Thompson was watching that race from the southern end of the track.
“He gave me a heart attack. The very first 200 he went out in 23.6. I said ‘Oh god, this is not good.’ Because you know what’s going to happen. He’s green in the sport. Dead man walking.”
Arop led his heat through 600 metres, then faded badly and wound up 16th overall with a pedestrian time of 1:56.75. He had run almost four seconds faster a month earlier.
His best time now, 1:42.85, is the Canadian record. When he won the world championship in Budapest last summer, he did it in 1:44.24.
The 25-year-old is not predicting another record run, but he’d like to give the Foote Field faithful, which will include family and friends, something to cheer about on Thursday.
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“I want to do something special. Both coaches gave me the green light to try and do something I haven’t done before, which is run 48 seconds through the first 400,” he said. “Of course it depends on how I feel on the day. If I wake up and I’m not feeling sharp or the weather is not co-operating, then I’ll have to change the plan, but I really want to go out there and try to run fast.”
The Invitational is a World Athletics Continental Tour silver-level meet with $75,000 US in prize money up for grabs. It kicks off at 2:15 p.m. on Thursday with the women’s hammer throwing event and concludes with Arop and an international field in the men’s 800-metres at 4:40 p.m.
In between, nine other track and four other field events will feature several other Canadian stars, including Sarah Mitton — who owns the women’s national shot put record of 20.68 metres and is the reigning indoor world champ — Alysha Newman, who holds the national women’s pole vault record of 4.83 metres, and Audrey Leduc, who lowered the Canadian women’s 100-metre record to 10.96 seconds in April.
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