One among Canada’s biggest distance runners, Jerome Drayton, died unexpectedly on Monday in Toronto on the age of 80.
Drayton was thought-about a pioneer in Canadian marathoning, rating among the many high marathoners on the planet in the course of the Seventies. He gained the celebrated Fukuoka Marathon in Japan on three events and was the final Canadian to win the Boston Marathon in 1977.
The Toronto Olympic Membership athlete had a protracted and profitable profession in marathoning, recording almost a dozen worldwide wins and attaining a sixth-place end on the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. In 1978, Drayton was inducted into Canada’s Sports activities Corridor of Fame.
Drayton’s finest efficiency got here on the 1975 Fukuoka Marathon, the place he set a Canadian males’s marathon file of two:10:09. His file stood the check of time till it was damaged 43 years later by Cam Levins on the 2018 Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
What would Jerome Drayton’s marathon time be with in the present day’s shoe expertise?
Born on January 10, 1945, in Germany, Drayton and his household moved to Canada within the Nineteen Fifties after his dad and mom separated. His start identify was Peter Buniak, however as an avid monitor and subject fan, he modified his identify to Jerome Drayton in admiration of two sprinters: Harry Jerome and Paul Drayton.
There will probably be a service held in honour for Drayton on Friday, Feb. 14, at St. Volodymyr Cathedral in Toronto at 11 a.m.