THE CANADIAN PRESS
Jon Brown has been cleared to run for Canada.
The Olympic marathoner had his switch of allegiance to Canada from Great Britain approved Tuesday by the IAAF, the world governing body for track and field.
"It’s a relief the paperwork is completed finally," Brown said from his Victoria home. "Now it’s just up to me to run the qualifying time, and hopefully Canada will again have some representation in the Olympic marathon."
The addition of Brown, who was Great Britain’s top marathoner and finished fourth in both the 2000 Sydney Olympics and 2004 Athens Olympics, is a big boost to the Canadian track program, said Martin Goulet, the chief high performance officer for Athletics Canada.
"It’s very good news to Canada to have an athlete like him, with his experience and with the results he’s had," Goulet said from Montreal. "It’s a huge asset."
The 36-year-old from Wales has lived in Canada since 1996, deciding to settle on the West Coast with his wife after racing in the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria.
Brown had been battling complacency and a handful of nagging injuries, and considered retiring from competitive marathoning. Injuries had kept him out of the world championships in 2005 and the world championships this past summer in Osaka, Japan.
He also recently lost his funding from the UK government.
He decided to cut his competitive ties to Great Britain this past fall and run for Canada, the country he’s called home for more than a decade.
Brown’s next hurdle en route to a berth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics is to run Athletics Canada’s qualifying standard in the marathon of two hours 12 minutes 38 seconds. He would be the first Canadian to compete in the Olympic men’s marathon since Bruce Deacon finished 44th in Sydney in 2000. He plans to run the Tokyo Marathon on Feb. 17.
"My training has been going well so I’m hoping I can get the qualifying time done then," Brown said.
"He’s a professional, so he knows what he needs to do and when he needs to do it," Goulet said.
Brown, who holds the British record for the 10,000 metres, has a personal best in the marathon of 2:09.31, better than the Canadian record of 2:10.08 set by Jerome Drayton in 1975.
Brown ran a 2:11 in his one marathon last season.
If he doesn’t make the standard in Tokyo, his final chance to qualify would be the Canadian marathon championships May 25.