When Cam Levins passed under the Tokyo Marathon finish line clock on March 5, the clock read 2:05:36.
Not only had he lowered his personal best by a minute and a half, but the time was a new Canadian record and, as he would discover in the post-race doping control room, the fastest time ever run by a North American—two seconds under Khalid Khannouchi’s 21-year-old mark and faster than Galen Rupp, Meb Keflezighi, or Ryan Hall on a record-eligible course.
Moreover, battling with the leaders into the last mile and winding up fifth in Tokyo’s World Marathon Major field also validated—for the second time in eight months—that he could legitimately call himself a world-class marathoner, something he had been working toward for the better part of a decade.
The first validation that Levins had turned a corner in his career came last July when he finished fourth in the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, with a then-Canadian record of 2:07:09. That performance was a real surprise to anyone who had witnessed his dreadful 71st place finish at the 2021 Olympics.
“Tokyo was an improvement over Eugene,” Levins said….
