University of Toronto Varsity Blues track and field alumna Gabriela DeBues-Stafford earned a fifth-place finish in the women's 1500m at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo on Friday morning.
Â
The Toronto native, who placed 25
th in the same event at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, clocked a time of 3:58.93.
"I didn't come here for fifth," she said. "There are some parts of my race that I'm proud of, but with 400 metres to go I suddenly felt like 'I'm good. I've got this,' and they found another gear and I was like, 'I don't have this,'" said Stafford. "I just didn't have the legs today and that's really upsetting."
Â
DeBues-Stafford, who graduated with a psychology degree from U of T's Victoria College in 2019, kicked off the Games with a first-place finish in her heat (4:03.70) last Sunday to automatically qualify for Wednesday's semifinals. She then ran the third-fastest time out of semifinals, crossing the finish line in 3:58.28.
Â
Â
DeBues-Stafford earned her berth to Tokyo following an outstanding year on the track.Â
The Toronto native became the first Canadian woman to break two minutes in the 800m, four minutes in the 1500m and 15 minutes in the 5000m. She holds the Canadian records in the mile, 1500m and 5000m outdoors, as well as the mile and 5000m indoors. She entered Tokyo ranked fourth in the world in the women's 1500m.
Â
The recent U of T grad is a four-time OUA all-star and U SPORTS all-Canadian was named the national track and field athlete of the year in 2015-16. She is a three-time OUA 1500m champion, two-time OUA 1000m champion and helped the Blues to two gold-medal finishes in the 4x800 relay. Nationally, she is a two-time 1500m champion, while also winning the U SPORTS 1000m and 3000m events once.
Â
