Just days away from a last chance to book passage to Paris, Ben Preisner shared a committed message on Instagram.
“I need to see this Olympic qualification process through to the bitter end.”
Unfortunately, bitter would turn out to be the operative word Sunday.
Just a week removed from a DNF in Hamburg, Germany, the 28-year-old Milton marathoner needed either to hit the Olympic standard of 2:08.10 in Copenhagen to automatically secure a return to the Summer Games or something close to that to finish within the top-80 world rankings and snag the last Team Canada spot.
That wasn’t meant to be.
“I just simply wasn’t on my A game when I needed to be,” Preisner told MiltonToday of Sunday’s 2:36.49 finish.
The Bishop Reding Secondary School and University of Tulsa graduate sat with the 2:10 pace group through about 25 kilometres and felt things were going to plan before the wheels fell off.
“I think I had a bit of a case of running on fumes, and that’s when little things like injuries start to pile up,” said Preisner, referring to a nagging groin pull that had ended his hopes in Hamburg. “After about 28 km my bid for the Olympics was over. I made the decision that I wasn’t going to drop out of this one, so it was a long crawl home.”
“I’m 100 per cent heart broken (at not making Olympics).”
Making this missed opportunity even tougher to swallow was the fact that Preisner had delivered a personal-best 2:08.58 showing just two months earlier at Beppu-Oita, Japan – which now stands as Canada’s all–time third-fastest marathon.
He wasn’t far off that mark when he qualified for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, stamping his ticket with a 2:10.17 performance – more than a minute better than the Olympic standard at the time – at The Marathon Project in Arizona in what was incredibly his very first marathon.
He’d go on to finish in 2:19.27 in Tokyo for 46th place – Canada’s top showing.
Of course Preisner didn’t just arrive on the marathon scene out of nowhere.
First picking up distance running as a kid to boost his hockey stamina, he would eventually transition over and excel at both cross-country and track and field – representing Canada in both sports.
From there, he made a slow and strategic move to the marathon, in which he feels his best efforts are still to come.
“I know I have more in me,” said Preisner.