Heats are underway in the U18 men’s 110m hurdles on Day 1 at the 2024 Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships in Calgary. [Stephen J. Thorne/LM]

100 images of the 2024 Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships: Part 2

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

There must be something in the water they give those athletes at the Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships.

The 2024 Summer Olympics was proof positive of the Nationals’ fundamental role in the rise of elite Canadian sports men and women—28 Legion Nationals alumni wore Canadian red and white in Paris, including bronze-medalist pole vaulter Alysha Newman of London, Ont., and golden shot putters Ethan Katzberg and Camryn Rogers, both B.C. natives.

And judging by three balmy August days of competition at the 2024 Legion Nationals in Calgary, the future looks bright.

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Canadian infantrymen head toward Canal du Nord in September 1918. [Wikimedia]

Currie’s crossing: Remembering the Battle of Canal du Nord

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

The Canadian Corps had cracked the Drocourt-Quéant Line, the Germans had withdrawn to their final defence at the Hindenburg Line, and the combined Allied forces under Marshal Ferdinand Foch sensed victory in the air.

But it wasn’t over yet—far from it.

Among the objectives still to wrest from enemy hands was the textile town and vital communications hub of Cambrai. The shock troops of General Arthur Currie’s corps would again be thrust into the fray, but first they needed to secure a crossing over the Canal du Nord before clearing Bourlon Wood en route to the prize. They also needed to break the well-prepared Marcoing defensive system. Brimming with machine-gun nests, it had the makings of a bloodbath.

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• A Gallant Force: Canadians in Operation Market Garden
• The Battle of Plattsburg: An Anglo-Canadian Defeat in the War of 1812
• My son in Spain: Canada’s last combat veteran of the Spanish Civil War

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