To catch a rising star: Audrey Leduc is gaining attention as she burns up the track

If we’re talking colour, Audrey Leduc is co-ordinated right down to the lime green yoga mat that she rolled up and stashed near her seat in the empty bleachers at Montreal’s Complex Sportif Claude-Robillard, where she’s settling in for a post-practice interview. 

It matches her dry-fit t-shirt, which also compliments the neon green splotches in the tie-dye on the arms of her sunglasses. Those shades also feature hints of lilac, which pair well with the running shoes Leduc, who has set national records in the 100 and 200 metres this season, slipped on after practice.

But if we’re talking brand continuity, there is none. Her shirt is from Adidas, her shoes from On. The shades came from a brand hoping to secure an endorsement, and during practice a few minutes earlier she wore New Balance, the same brand on her feet when she ran 10.96 seconds to eclipse Angela Bailey’s Canadian 100m record in April, and when she ran 22.36 to set a new 200m national mark on June 1.

An apparel sponsorship – a vital source of steady income for world-class track and field athletes – seems inevitable. Along with fast times, brands value visibility. Leduc’s breakout season has provided plenty of both. A week after setting the 200m record, Leduc spent time in the paddock at the Canadian Grand Prix F-1 race, a perk reserved for VIPs and celebrities.

Meanwhile, her team fields calls from meet directors in the U.S. and beyond, looking to book the fast-rising Canadian sprint star in high-stakes races.

Whether Leduc’s stock keeps climbing depends on her performance at this month’s Canadian Olympic trials, with the women’s 100 metres slated to take place June 28. That weekend, Leduc, who has already qualified for the Paris Olympics as part of Canada’s 4x100-metre relay team, could earn berths in the 100 and 200 as well, and cement her status as Canada’s fastest woman. But a strong showing could also present her with a puzzle to solve.

Leduc and her team credit her breakout season to their adherence to a productive routine. A flood of new sponsor obligations and overseas track meets could disrupt the regimen that spawned the performances that have brands and meet promoters pursuing her.

For her part, Leduc welcomes the dilemma.

The phone rings when she runs well. If it rings more after trials, it’s because she’s still performing.

“It’s a good thing,” Leduc said of balancing training, competition and increased attention from media and sponsors. “I’m just going to adapt to it. We’re going to see this year… Sky’s the limit.”

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On a Tuesday morning in early June, workers dot the main straightaway on the outdoor track at Claude-Robillard, hunching close to the ground, replacing worn-out patches with fresh rubber, rehabbing the running surface ahead of Olympic trials. It’s a sprint, and the oval is closed to the public this day so the crew can work even faster.

But the facility is open for the 25-year-old Leduc, who is running low-intensity sprints on the grass infield, beneath a bright sun and blue sky scattered with wispy clouds. The previous Saturday she set that national 200m record in a come-from-behind win at an American Track League meet in Atlanta, and this day’s workout fits with the timeline. A few days to celebrate the achievement, and a session to recover from the effort. 

Leduc’s coach, Fabrice Akué, who is also the head coach at the Athletics Canada high-performance hub in Montreal, trains her according to a straightforward template. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, they go hard – sprinting followed by weights. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for active recovery. Every Wednesday, they test – timed sprints over short distances that lengthen as the year progresses. The data have helped Akué track Leduc’s progress and adjust her training load since September, when he started her on this work schedule. And testing reveals that Leduc’s audacious 2024 results haven’t come out of nowhere. They followed eight months of steady growth in practice.

“People are kind of surprised, but they didn’t see that coming from training to training, week to week,” said Akué, who has trained Leduc since her first year at Laval University, where he coached until 2022. “Week to week, the times just keep improving.”

This past winter, Leduc chopped 0.23 seconds off her personal best in the indoor 60 metres, running 7.21 at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. That result earned her sixth place in her semifinal, and foreshadowed her breakthrough outdoor season.

On April 20, she trailed several runners early in the 100m final at the LSU Alumni Gold track meet before a mid-race gear shift propelled her past everyone but Aleia Hobbs, the veteran U.S. sprinter. Hobbs finished in 10.88 seconds, with Leduc running 10.96 to eclipse a Canadian record, previously held by Angela Bailey, that had stood for 36 years. The new mark also represents a .42 second improvement over the 11.38-second personal best Leduc established last season.

I’m stronger. At every step, I can push as much as I can. Now I can deliver all I can with my body on the track

Her 200m progression is even more stunning – Leduc’s 22.36-second national record is 1.26 seconds faster than her previous best mark. In a head-to-head race over 200 metres, this season’s Audrey Leduc would defeat last year’s version by roughly 10 metres.

That kind of rapid progress can happen for talented newcomers. Andre DeGrasse dropped his 200m time from 20.38 in 2014, his third season running track, to 19.88 in 2015, following his first NCAA season.

But Leduc, a native of Gatineau, Que., began running track at age 10. She attributes her steep upward trajectory to the change in her training plan, coupled with physical and mental maturity. In previous seasons, she says, she lacked the capacity to follow a sprint workout with weight training. Her body and central nervous system couldn’t recover quickly enough to string quality sessions together. Now, she says, she can handle the workload. She’s performing like a world-class sprinter because, she says, she’s finally able to train like one.

“Improving everything by a little,” said Leduc, who on June 10, was named a USports athlete of the year. “I’m stronger. At every step, I can push as much as I can. Now I can deliver all I can with my body on the track.”

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In early May, Leduc received an offer to compete at the Los Angeles Grand Prix that included a tantalizing incentive: a fast time would earn her a lane at the Prefontaine Classic, the Diamond League event in Eugene, Ore. the following weekend.

The proposal promised a chance to gain invaluable experience, lining up alongside superstars like Dina Asher-Smith of the U.K., and the American phenom Sha’Carri Richardson. A Diamond League assignment also would have offered perks – appearance fees, prize money, and the kind of visibility sponsors treasure – that boost any sprinter’s bottom line.

Leduc and her team declined the offer.

She had logged back-to-back relay camps in the U.S., and then competed with Canada’s women’s 4x100m team at World Relays, where they secured an Olympic spot by finishing seventh. Given Leduc’s springtime schedule, Akué reasoned that she needed a three-week training block more than she needed another long flight, and high-pressure races for which she hadn’t trained specifically. The invitation to race represented a sound business decision; three weeks of hard training would yield better long-term results. Leduc opted to focus on performance in May, and set a national 200m record in early June.

“When we combine that 60 metres, that two-tenths faster, plus my strength, my top speed, I’m just naturally going to be faster in the 100, and the 200,” she said. 

But the business of pro sport still figures to impose itself on the routine that powered Leduc’s successful early season. If she performs well at Olympic trials, invites to high-level overseas meets will follow.

And the sponsorship question looms over everything.

By mid-June, Leduc’s Instagram page featured highlights from training and competition, video of her record-breaking 100m run, and a slideshow from her VIP weekend at the Canadian Grand Prix. But it didn’t contain the sponsored posts that often dot pro athletes’ social media accounts.

If Leduc keeps putting up big numbers, her endorsement portfolio will probably fill out. Exploratory phone calls to her marketing agent, Nicolas Metayer, spiked in late April, after she ran 10.96, and he thinks interest will intensify, especially in Quebec, where she has a built-in fan base.

“It’s one of our own,” said Metayer, the Quebec City native who handles Leduc’s file for Toronto-based Envision Sports and Entertainment. “From that perspective, the sponsors and the brands in Quebec immediately started reaching out.”

For most athletes in Leduc’s position – fresh graduates from national to world class – the goal is to run fast enough to chase down an apparel deal. Best case scenario, the partnership is stable and lucrative enough to last their entire career. Think Usain Bolt and Puma.

But they sometimes resemble celebrity romances, with high-profile pairings, short-term commitments and ugly, public breakups. 

Two years ago Fred Kerley won a 100m world title wearing Nikes, but by the 2023 season the U.S. sprint star had switched to Asics. Earlier this month the company, which also backs Canadian marathon record-holder Cam Levins, sponsored the men’s 100m dash at the New York Grand Prix. Kerley, the race’s featured runner, settled into the blocks wearing an Asics singlet … and Puma spikes.

Two false starts later, he was disqualified, gaffes that, to many observers, seemed intentional. And an hour after that, as Kerley played coy about his relationship with his main sponsor, claiming he had lost his original spikes at the airport. Asics confirmed that it had split with its marquee performer.

“ASICS and Fred Kerley have mutually parted ways and he is no longer an ASICS sponsored athlete,” read a statement issued to Citius Mag. “We wish him the best in his career.”

The Kerley affair underlines the crucial importance of apparel deals – every performer needs a reliable supply of equipment they trust. But it also highlights how quickly these partnerships can devolve into bitter mismatches. And it’s the challenge Leduc and her team, which also includes track agent Paul Doyle, who fields inquiries from apparel makers, have to navigate this summer. 

“Audrey is a very meticulous person. She needs to test the equipment to make sure it’s a good fit for her performance,” Metayer said. “For us, it’s to put the options on the table for her. The right decision is Audrey’s decision.”

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Leduc grew up a two-sport athlete in Gatineau, Que. Her first sport was soccer, which she played through the triple-A level.

The second? Trampoline.

She didn’t last long. The local trampoline facility closed shortly after Leduc turned nine. She filled the sports void with sprinting.

“If the place I was doing trampoline didn’t close, I wouldn’t be doing track and field, probably,” she said.

By 17 Leduc had posted some impressive numbers competing for the Gatineau Athletics Club, like the 11.80 second 100m clocking at a midsummer track meet in Quebec City in 2016. But sprinting was a supplement to soccer, her main sport, until her final year of high school, when she dropped soccer to concentrate on track field.

After topping out in the 100m at 11.90 seconds in 2017 and 2018, Leduc shattered that plateau, running 11.48 in 2019, the summer before she enrolled at Laval and began working with Ekué.

The coach noted that huge improvement, which coincided with Leduc’s first full season focusing on track. But he also saw untapped potential in her long limbs and elastic strength.

If you’re not familiar with the importance of elasticity in sports performance, it’s exactly as the name implies: an athlete’s ability to bounce, to put energy into the ground, get that energy back quickly and turn it into propulsion. It’s a key element of high-level track and field.  Less time spent on the ground means more time in the air, moving toward a destination, whether it’s a high jump bar, a long jump pit or a finish line.

To put it another way, imagine holding a beanbag in one hand and a rubber ball in the other, then dropping them from the same height. Most people are like that beanbag. Elite sprinters like Leduc are the rubber ball. 

“Her ability to relax makes her really quick off the ground. That’s the quality we look for in sprinters,” Akué said. “I don’t look for big muscles, or even times when they were young. I feel like if they have that elasticity on the ground, we can work.”

Leduc’s progress this season has been stunning, but the numbers are unforgiving. Sha’Carri Richardson ran 10.65 seconds to win last year’s world championships, with Shericka Jackson second in 10.72, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce third in 10.77. Back-of-the envelope math says 0.19 of a second separate Leduc from a spot on the Olympic podium. It’s an eyeblink in real life, but among top-tier elite women’s sprinters, it might as well be a week. 

A glance at Leduc’s record-setting 100m run suggests she could close that gap with a better start, since she trailed several of her competitors early before slingshotting past them mid-race. But whether that strategy works depends on how you define a better start.

If you think Leduc needs to hit higher speeds sooner in the race, then, yes, a better start would help her. It’s a fix that’s been suggested for champion sprinters from Richardson to Noah Lyles to Donovan Bailey, and winning won’t necessarily quiet critics.

In early June, University of Houston sprint star Louie Hinchliffe ran 9.95 to win an NCAA title in the men’s 100m. The race unfolded as Hinchliffe's – and Leduc’s – often do, with a steady build to peak speed, and a sizzling second half. Afterward, Hinchliffe’s coach, the legendary American sprinter Carl Lewis, reminded armchair experts that the best start is the one that gets you to the finish line fastest.

“Please stop coaching from computers,” Lewis told Citius Mag. “The guy’s start is fine. He’s running fast. Everyone told me, ‘If you fix your start, you’ll run faster.’ But I won every meet. So why don’t they fix their finish?”

For her part, Leduc says running too aggressively, too early, leads to poor outcomes. Akué cues her to race with patience.

She has the talent. It’s a matter of solving puzzles.

“Her strength is her competitiveness, but it can get in the way of her relaxing sometimes,” he said. “You have to learn to set your race up better. That’s what we’re working on.”

Leduc agrees that her best results come when she focuses on her lane even if it means losing ground early, and refining the race model that has worked so well for her this year.

“It’s a work in progress until nationals, until the Olympics,” she said. “Trying to keep your head in your lane.”

As for Leduc’s long-term development, Akué takes a similar strategy. Another huge improvement this season is akin to leading a race at 40 metres, a nice bonus but not the ultimate goal. Akué says Leduc is just entering her prime years, with plenty of upside between now and the 2028 Summer Games, when he thinks she should peak.

“She has the talent. It’s a matter of solving puzzles,” he said.  “To make sure that she’s still healthy, still enjoying coming to the track. I don’t want to say any times, but we have big plans.”