The London Marathon, or what is left of it anyway, went off Sunday morning across the pond with a number of top Canadian runners taking part including national record holder Cam Levins and Tristan Woodfine. The "elites" only event consisted of 19.6 laps of a 2.1K loop around St. James’s Park. There was also a virtual London Marathon that drew tens of thousands of participants.

Although Cam Levins went into the race on a high, training hard and stating that he was in the best shape of his running career, it was the Cobden, Ontario native Woodfine who ended up nailing a personal best time of 2:10:51 under the Olympic qualifying time for Tokyo in 2021. It was good enough for 14th place in the field.

Woodfine's success might have surprised some, but Levins, in a CBC interview heading into the race, hinted that he expected big things from Woodfine after the two spent time training together in Kenya.

"I think he's going to surprise some people," Levins told CBC Sports. "If he's even in similar shape to what he was in Kenya, he'll do awesome."

The cold weather got to Levins, and the runner from Black Water, B.C., ended up dropping out of the race. 

Ethiopian runner Shura Kitata took the men's title in a time of 2:05:41. World record holder Eliud Kipchoge finished eighth at 2:06:49.

Kenya's Brigid Kosgei won the women's title at 2:18:58 while American runner Sara Hall was second in 2:22:01.

Canadian Brent Lakatos finished on top of the podium in the wheelchair event.

The Quebec-born competitor now lives in Britain and he put his familiarity with the cold, wet weather to his advantage winning a close sprint to the finish in a time of 1:36:04. Briain's David Weir was second just inches behind at 1:36:06. 

Lead photo Brent Latakos courtesy of Athletics Canada.