‘It feels very surreal still’

Have a month, Tyrell Davis.

Three days after speeding to Canadian university gold on home turf in record-setting fashion, the 21-year-old Winnipeg sprinter received an invitation to trade his Manitoba Bisons singlet for one with the Maple Leaf.

Davis, who won the men’s 60-metre race at the U Sports track and field championship, was added to Team Canada’s roster for the World Athletics Indoor Championship, which begins Friday in Poland.

“Since I was a little kid, I’ve always wanted to represent Canada track,” said Davis, who will race in his first international event. “So now that I’m actually getting the opportunity, it feels very surreal still.”

The fourth-year Bison knew this was in the range of outcomes this season, but he wasn’t holding his breath. While it’s not uncommon for Athletics Canada to invite the national champion to World’s, Davis felt he could still get squeezed out.

“Going into the season, it wasn’t in my radar at all, because the previous season I was ranked decent, but there were quite a few guys ahead of me, and there are guys that had graduated from (university), and their only goal for the season was to get a fast time and to qualify for worlds,” he said.

“But after being ranked second for the whole year, I was like, ‘Okay, this is something that I really think I can get,’ and with the World Indoor standard being 6.59, I knew that if I hit that at U Sports, then I’m pretty sure I would be a lock to go, so when I got that email, I was pretty excited.”

Davis had been building to this for a couple of years. He earned silver at the 2024 national championship and finished fourth at last year’s event.

In the weeks leading up to this year’s meet, however, Davis admittedly felt off.

“Nothing really special, I guess. I almost felt like things weren’t clicking for me,” he said. “I always get to a point in the season where everything’s just like clicking and flowing — I hit that very early on in the season, but then it went away for a little bit.”

Inexplicably, that changed the week of the meet.

“It was, all of a sudden, back to everything just clicking and flowing perfectly. So I was feeling good, I was getting excited. And I felt like I was back in a spot where I could end up (setting a personal best) and winning, which ended up happening.”

Davis crossed the finish line in a blink — 6.59 seconds was the time. Not just a winning time, but a record-setting time. It was the first time a Manitoban sprinter had run sub-6.6, and just the third time a university athlete had ever eclipsed that threshold.

Davis, who ran 6.6 flat at a meet earlier in the season, thought a time in the 6.5s was possible, but seeing is believing.

“I was just super excited that I won at home. That was kind of the biggest thing.”

His reaction said it all.

“I actually didn’t have a clue what I ran,” said Davis, who skipped back to the starting block and was swarmed by his teammates. “I was just super excited that I won at home. That was kind of the biggest thing. Then I got back to the starting line, and I just heard the announcer say, ‘6.59.’ And I don’t know what the race felt like, I kind of just blacked out a little bit, but I didn’t expect it to be that fast.”

Now Davis will run for Canada, which is a first for his track-crazed family.

His cousins ran track, and his father, Anthony, ran for the Bisons in the ’90s, including on the school’s 4×400-metre relay team that set a Canada West record in 1994.

One thing Anthony never did was race in an international event, but Davis said he won’t be bragging to his old man about one-upping him.

“I think it’s just as surreal for them as it is for me.”

“I think they’re all really proud, and I think it’s just as surreal for them as it is for me,” Davis said. “They’ve watched me grow up running around in the backyard or through the house and all that kind of stuff, while having something playing on the TV, to actually like accomplishing one of my dreams, which was to represent Canada at a world championship.”

Davis is ranked 30th in the 60m event at Worlds. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain, which he figures should make for an enjoyable experience.

“My goal is to definitely make the semifinals, but anything else would just be icing on the cake.”

“I think it’s more of a, ‘Let’s have some fun and see how things go,’” Davis said. “My goal is to definitely make the semifinals, but anything else would just be icing on the cake. The main thing is just to go out and let’s see what we can do and try out some fun and just soak in the experience.”

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