How a Canadian became the world's fastest 70-year-old female sprinter

Many people try to stay healthy long enough to play with their grandkids one day. But for 70-year-old Wendy Alexis, she takes this goal a few steps further — racing against people the same age as her grandkids, and sometimes winning.

This year, Alexis broke multiple records, which includes running a 14.64-second time in the 100 metres of the women's 70-year-old category at the 2025 Ottawa Summer Twilight #8 meet in June.

Those speeds make Alexis — a mother of two, with two grandchildren, plus another on the way — the fastest 70-year-old woman in the world.

"I love competing, I like to beat people. It's really cool to set records, but most of it really is just this feeling of being absolutely free," Alexis told CBC Sports.

"The fundamental thing, I think, is just go out there and breathe free and run like I'm eight years old again."

WATCH | Alexis returned to sprinting in her 50s:

Wendy Alexis, a retired teacher living in Ottawa, returned to sprinting in her fifties. Twenty years later, she’s the world record holder in her age category for the women's 100-metre.

Alexis, a retired teacher who resides in Ottawa, began running at age eight. As a teen, she competed on provincial and junior national teams, and was an Olympic hopeful for the 1972 Summer Games in Munich.

But after Alexis endured a career-altering injury at age 19, resulting in double-shin surgery, she was told she'd never run again.

A few years later, she would hang up her track shoes, get married, have kids and pursue a career in education.

That is, until a fateful day nearly 30 years later when Alexis was at the track watching her grandson compete for the Ottawa Lions Track and Field club.

"He said, 'You know, there's some old people at the end. Why don't you go hang out with the old people down there?'" she said.

"The Lions hold Twilight meets every Wednesday night, and so anybody can enter … I thought, okay, I'll just run one Twilight meet, I'll run the last one. If it's a disaster, nobody's going to remember anyway."

That day, Alexis raced along with her son, and grandson in their own age categories. They snapped a picture to commemorate the family moment, and she thought that'd be it for her return to running.

But when she was approached by a coach who had seen her race, she was up all night thinking about it.

"The next day I was backing my car out of the driveway, and I was on my way to do my first track practice in 33 years. And I've been running since then. That was 20 years ago," Alexis said.

For two decades, the sport has taken Alexis to tracks around the globe, from Hungary to Sweden, racing athletes of varying ages.

In 2013, at the World Masters Championships in Torino, Alexis stood in as the fourth sprinter in an all-men's relay team.

"We actually came fourth overall, which would have been interesting if we had medalled, because then we'd be on the podium, I don't know what kind of confusion that would cause," she said.

"We came very close to breaking the Canadian record, and it was three men and me."

Most of the time, Alexis does track training four times a week, also doing some form of weight training and deep water running in the pool on the other days, amounting to about 25 hours a week.

"It's like having a part-time job, actually," she said. "But I have to because as you age you lose muscle mass, you lose speed. And the only way to counter that is to do more weight training, to do more stretching."

Alexis also works with a physiotherapist weekly. "I joke with him that I'm Humpty Dumpty and he puts me together again," she said.

"People are surprised that I can run reasonably fast, but it's not actually me. I do part of it. I have the legs and I'm the one out there. But if I took away any piece of the puzzle that I have, I wouldn't be able to do this," she said.

When asked her advice for anyone allowing age to limit their dreams, Alexis simply replied, "just do it."

"Will you do it exactly the same as you would have done when you were younger? Probably not. And you'll have to make some modifications, but the drive is still there," she said.

"When I step on the track, I'm still 15. It doesn't matter what my body's doing. My mind is still 15."

She adds that there is an entire community of people in her age category pursuing track who motivate her to compete. "And there was nothing stopping them. So why would anything stop me?"

At the end of the day, Alexis is just doing what she loves to do: run.

"I had a very promising career in track early on, and it was cut short. So it was kind of like a second chance to finish what I started. Then I thought maybe it's like my rage against old age or something like that. I don't know what it is now … but I love running."

"I want to do this forever."