Brooke Overholt wins national title after foot injury

Named to Canadian Commonwealth Games team headed to Glasgow

Brooke Overholt won gold at the Canadian National Track and Field Championships June 17-21 in the 400-metre hurdles and was named to Team Canada for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, July 23 to Aug. 2.

By Spencer Seymour

For Brooke Overholt, her gold medal at the Canadian National Championship was the payoff after a long road back to the podium.

The St. Marys native claimed the top prize in the 400-metre senior hurdles event at the Canadian Nationals, held in Ottawa June 17-21. Overholt described the win’s importance to her after a lengthy injury rehabilitation process.

“This one’s special for sure,” said Overholt. “It’s my first senior title and I’m coming off being injured the last two years. So, it’s just special to have that win after not racing for a long time. It was a long year of relearning how to walk, run, sprint and hurdle again. So, it’s just satisfying to have all of that hard work pay off and know that progress is being made and that I am still able to be the Canadian National Champion.”

Overholt noted the injury, a stress fracture in her foot, has been dogging her for the past two years and resulted in her missing out on qualifying for the Canadian Olympic team.

“My injury was diagnosed in April last year, and it was an injury that I was previously dealing with in 2024, which sidelined me from making the Olympic team, and it was re-diagnosed last year. The team doctors decided that getting surgery was the next step. They put screws in one of the bones to help strengthen it and reinforce it to prevent the injury from happening again, but because of it being in the foot, I had to be non-weight bearing, so I couldn’t walk for six weeks.

“After that, it slowly progressed to walking in a boot and then walking, and then you work up to being able to jog and then from there progress into running and then sprinting and then hurdling,” Overholt continued. “I started jogging on the ground in July of last year, and you just have to take it day by day. You just have to jog one day, and you see how the body responds. You take one or two days off, and then you try it again and just slowly progress and see how you adapt to things.”

With the injury and surgery now in her rear-view mirror, Overholt noted the adversity she has faced in the last two years is driving her to capture what the injury took from her two years ago.

“It’s fueling me so much right now,” Overholt said of the last two years dealing with and recovering from the foot injury. “The goal is to make the LA 2028 (Olympics). It was heartbreaking having the injury diagnosed right before the trials in 2024. I was still able to make it to Canadian Nationals that year, but I just didn’t have enough time to get back into race shape.

“So, when it happened again last year, it was disappointing because I had already gone through that, and there was a world’s team last year that was in September in Japan that I was training towards and trying to make, but I wasn’t able to make that team again. So, it was just taking all of those teams that I’ve missed and just using that as motivation to get through all of those hard days.”

Soon after winning gold at the Canadian Nationals, Overholt was named to the Canadian national team competing at the Commonwealth Games July 23-Aug. 2 in Glasgow, Scotland.

“That is such an honour,” Overholt said. “As I’ve said, I’ve missed out on national teams for the last few years, so to be able to represent Canada on the international level again is an honour, and it’s just something that I’ve been working towards for so long now throughout these injuries.”