Recent University of Toronto Varsity Blues graduate Lucia Stafford finished 13th overall in the women's 1500m at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
 
The 21-year-old Toronto native wowed the crowd with a personal best time of 4:03.52 in Sunday's heats to qualify in seventh for the semifinals.
 
Stafford, U of T's 2019-20 T-Holders' female athlete of the year, followed that up with another fantastic result, placing sixth in her semifinal in another lifetime best time of 4:02.12 to narrowly miss the final and finish 13th overall.

What a race for Lucia Stafford 🇨🇦

She finishes 6th in her semifinal with a personal best time, but just misses the cut-off to qualify for the final pic.twitter.com/eVMA5EMQeP

— CBC Olympics (@CBCOlympics) August 4, 2021

 
As a Varsity Blue, Stafford was a cross country phenom, helping the Blues to the 2017 national title, while winning both championship races to be named OUA and U SPORTS female athlete of the year in 2019. 
 
On the track, she is a four-time OUA all-star and three-time U SPORTS all-Canadian. She was named the winner of the 2018 Dr. Wendy Jerome Trophy as the OUA female most valuable performer and wrapped up her intercollegiate career as U of T's T-Holders' female athlete of the year and the OUA female athlete of the year across all sports in 2019-20. 
 
Her last international appearance came with two fifth-place finishes in the 1500m and 4x400 relay at the 2019 FISU Summer Universiade in Naples, Italy. 
 
Stafford's sister, Gabriela DeBues-Stafford, finished third in the other 1500m semfinal, automatically qualifying for Friday's morning's final.

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