Just before Jude-Wheeler Dee stepped onto the track this January in Montreal, Gaels cross-country and distance-track head coach Mark Bomba offered two words of advice: "run free."
It was the 28th annual McGill Team Challenge, the Tomlinson Fieldhouse, the 1500-metre final.
Wheeler-Dee already had the Queen's records in the 1000-metre, mile, and 3000-metre events. But it was the 1500-metre record that the fourth-year concurrent education student really wanted.
Forty-seven years earlier, Bob McCormack, Meds’79, had clocked a 3:44.84 at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Championships in a now legendary 1500-metre race in OUA and Queen’s history. No Queen’s athlete had been able to beat it.
Until this January in Montreal.
Wheeler-Dee went out relatively slow, but in the second half of the race he took his coach’s advice and started pulling away from the field.
With 200 metres to go, he heard coach Bomba yell out, “You need a 28 or 29!” Meaning the number of seconds he would have to run the final 200 to break McCormack’s record.
"I thought I could do that,” says a humble Mr. Wheeler-Dee.
And indeed, he did that.
He crossed the line at 3:42.53, winning by an incredible eight seconds and besting McCormack’s record by more than two seconds.
After the race, Queen’s Athletics and Recreations Communications Assistant Faith Hamilton asked McCormack what he thought of his time meeting its match.
"The short answer is, it’s about time,” said Mr. McCormack, now an orthopedic surgeon who has also been the Canadian Olympic Committee’s chief medical officer at six Olympics. “Records are meant to be broken, so I’m really happy.”
McCormack's 1978 record-breaking run was a bit different than Wheeler-Dee’s.
"It was a very close race with another person, so I had someone doing a lot of the work for me,” remembered McCormack. “Jude did it all himself, so it’s an impressive run.”
Another first happened at the Queen’s Track and Field Hall of Fame dinner in August 2023 – McCormack and Wheeler-Dee met for the first time.
"I fangirled,” says Mr. Wheeler-Dee. “I got so nervous because I had heard so much about him. It meant a lot.”
For McCormack, it was a chance to tell the young phenom his wish: that he wanted his 1500-metre record broken.
Wheeler-Dee's typically modest response a year and a half later: “And so I did it.”
This story was prepared with files from Faith Hamilton.
