How B.C. runners Butterworth, Townsend pushed each other in journey to athletics worlds

It promises to be a memorable Thursday evening for Brit Townsend when two Canadian women toe the line in the 800-metre heats at the World Athletics Championships.

The scene at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., will take the retired middle-distance runner back to Helsinki and the first world competition in 1983 when she placed eighth in 1,500 final before improving to seventh at the Los Angeles Olympics the following summer.

It is also the first time Townsend has had more than one athlete compete at a single major championship since she began coaching track and field and cross-country at Simon Fraser University in 1998.

"This is special, especially since one of them is my daughter," she said of 24-year-old Addy before departing Burnaby, B.C., for worlds. "When you step on the stage at an Olympic Games or world championships, it's something you can't really experience in other areas of your life. For that, I'm grateful she's going to get that experience."

Addy Townsend will be making her worlds debut, fresh off a fourth-place effort last month at Canadian championships following a mysterious illness that sidelined her for a month. She'll be joined by training partner and fellow SFU alumni Lindsey Butterworth, who was second in the same race in Langley, B.C., and is making her third world championships appearance.

A two-time Canadian champion, Butterworth made her Olympic debut last summer and geared up for worlds with her third performance of the season under two minutes (1:59.89) on July 9 at the Oxy Invitational in L.A.

Brit marvels at Butterworth's consistency in staying healthy and strong — "she'll never miss a weightlifting session, even if she has to do it on the deck of her condo" — and noted the serious, composed athlete brings a relaxed attitude to practice.

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"They complement each other because Addy's a lot of fun and full of excitement at practice," Brit said. "She kind of lights up the space and Lindsey shows you can balance things other than the sport" in her job as SFU Athletics' NCAA program co-ordinator and academic adviser who is also working on her master's degree.

Butterworth is eager to lower her 1:59.19 personal best from last year's Olympic trials, said Brit, who believes the North Vancouver, B.C., native can run faster and wondered if being in a world championship environment will be a difference-maker.

A year ago, COVID-19 restrictions in North America robbed Butterworth of the chance to practise race tactics and strategies at several championship-calibre events and properly prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, where she placed 32nd despite feeling as fit as ever.

Conversely, Butterworth's pre-worlds race schedule featured World Indoors (where she was sixth in 2:03.21 in March), the competitive USATF Golden Games in Walnut, Calif., and two meets on the Diamond League professional circuit.

For the two Diamond League races in Birmingham, England and Rome, she and her coach discussed positioning, with emphasis on race process rather than the outcome.

"I think [those races] were super valuable and [Butterworth] took advantage of them," Brit said. "We talked about where she wanted to be in the first 100 metres, the first 200, the first 400.