Cam Levins doubled his chances of bringing an Olympic medal home to Black Creek by winning the men’s 5,000-metre race at the 2012 Canadian Olympic track and field trials in Calgary.
Having already qualified for the 10,000-metre event at the London Summer Games, Levins won the 5,000m event last Friday in 14:34.82. The Olympic 10,000m final is scheduled for Aug. 4 with the 5,000m heats set for Aug. 8.
Meanwhile, the 23-year-old distance specialist has been named a finalist for The Bowerman – the highest honour given to the most outstanding athletes in collegiate track and field.
This past Friday, The Bowerman Advisory Board selected Levins (Southern Utah), Tony McQuay (Florida), and Andrew Riley (Illinois) as this year’s men’s finalists and Brigetta Barrett (Arizona), Kimberlyn Duncan (LSU), and Brianne Theisen (Oregon) as women’s finalists for the prestigious award.
Levins swept NCAA outdoor crowns at 5,000 and 10,000 metres this season, becoming the first to do so since 2009 when The Bowerman winner from that year – Oregon’s Galen Rupp – did so in Fayetteville, Ark. Using a 58.06-second final lap split, he maintained his two-second lead to take the 10K title in 28:07.14, the best time in meet history since 1984. In the 5,000, Levins closed in 54.28 on the final lap and 1:59.66 over the last 800 metres, to win by over a second (13:40.05).
Earlier in the season, on two consecutive weekends, Levins jumped into the record books with big runs at the Mt. SAC Relays and Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational. At the Mt. SAC Relays, Levins outran Arizona’s Lawi Lalang in a 5,000m thriller to clock the NCAA’s best time of the season, 13:18.47. The mark is fifth all-time in the collegiate ranks and the fastest by a collegian since 2008.
At the Payton Jordan meet, Levins ran another winning race against a stout field of pros and collegians with a 10k world-leading run of 27:27.96. The time is No. 2 on the all-time collegiate list.