Gabriela Maria DeBues-Stafford is a Canadian middle- and long-distance runner.
16 Facts About Gabriela DeBues-Stafford
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford holds six Canadian national outdoor and indoor records over distances from the 1500 to 5000 metres.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford was born in London, Ontario and grew up in Toronto.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford's father James Stafford was a former competitive runner and represented Canada at four World Cross Country Championships.
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In Grade 12, Gabriela DeBues-Stafford won the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations' cross country running championship.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford was accepted to study psychology at the University of Toronto's Victoria College, during which time she competed for the Varsity Blues athletics squad.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford competing in the women's 1500 m at the 2016 World Indoor Championships in Portland, finishing twelfth in the heats and thus not advancing to the event final.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford placed ninth in her heat of the women's 1500 m event, and twenty-fifth overall, and thus did not advance to the semi-final phase of the competition.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford enjoyed a strong 2019, breaking the national records for the indoor mile and 5,000 metres and the outdoor 1,500 metre, mile and 5,000 metre records.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford would go on to add the indoor 1,500 metre record in 2020.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford was again named to the Canadian Olympic team, this time alongside her sister Lucia.
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On 11 February 2022, at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational in Boston, Gabriela DeBues-Stafford broke the North, Central American and Caribbean record in the indoor 5000 metres with a time of 14m 31.38s, improving the mark set by USA's Shalane Flanagan in 2009 by more than 15 seconds.
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The daughter of James Stafford and Maria Luisa Gardner, Gabriela DeBues-Stafford has a younger brother, Nicholas, and her sister Lucia.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford's mother passed away due to leukemia when she was 13.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford dyed her hair in rainbow colours for the 2021 athletic season due to their association with the LGBT community.
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Gabriela DeBues-Stafford met her husband, Rowan DeBues while moving into her dormitory at the University of Toronto.