Lightning Leduc, Gatineau's record-breaking sprinter

Tashi Farmilo

Audrey Leduc opened her 2026 outdoor season with a runner-up finish at the USATF Lone Star Grand Prix in College Station, Texas on June 6, clocking 10.97 seconds in a near photo finish for second. The Gatineau sprinter edged Jamaica's Jodean Williams by three thousandths of a second for the spot behind winner Sabrina Dockery, a result that put one of Canada's fastest women back among the leaders of a deep international field early in the year.

For anyone who has followed her rise, the placing was the latest chapter in a story rooted at home. Leduc, 27, was born and raised in Gatineau and came to track almost by accident. Soccer was her first sport, and the running it demanded pulled her onto the track around age 10, when she joined the Gatineau Athletics Club. The speed she showed there earned her a nickname that has stuck ever since, "Lightning Leduc." She specialized in the 100 metres but also competed in the long jump, a versatility that would pay off later.

Unlike many of Canada's top young sprinters, Leduc chose to stay home rather than chase a US college scholarship. She enrolled at Université Laval in Quebec City and ran for the Rouge et Or while completing a bachelor's degree in psychology and then a master of business administration. The choice worked. She won a U Sports long jump title in 2023 with a personal best of 6.11 metres, went undefeated indoors over 60 metres the following season, and in 2024 was named U Sports female athlete of the year, one of the highest honours in Canadian university sport.

That 2024 season turned her into a household name. She raced at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow over 60 metres, then erased a Canadian record that had stood for 37 years, running 10.96 in Baton Rouge to break Angela Bailey's 100-metre mark from 1987. Weeks later, in Atlanta, she added the 200-metre national record at 22.36. The two performances sent her to her Olympic debut in Paris, where she lowered her own 100-metre record again to 10.95 in her opening heat and advanced to the semifinals. She also ran the 200 metres and anchored Canada's women's 4x100 relay, which reached the final.

Leduc has kept pushing the standard since. In the summer of 2025, she trimmed the national 100-metre record once more to 10.94 at a meet in Edmonton, and that September she captured the senior women's 100-metre title at the national championships in Ottawa, a short drive across the river from where she grew up.

As for what comes next, the Texas result is a season opener, and the summer ahead is a busy one. Leduc figures to race the European circuit and defend her national title before the year's marquee event for Commonwealth athletes, the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, where track and field runs from July 27 to August 1. Beyond this season, the longer goal is a return to the Olympic stage at Los Angeles 2028. For now, the woman who started out chasing a soccer ball in Gatineau remains the standard-bearer for Canadian women's sprinting, and her hometown will be watching every step.