Savannah Sutherland

Savannah Sutherland (born 7 August 2003) is a Canadian track and field athlete. She is the Canadian national record holder over the 400 m hurdles and the indoor 400 m.

Early life
From Borden, Saskatchewan, where she was educated at Borden School before she finished her schooling at Bishop James Mahoney High School in Saskatoon. In 2021, she joined the University of Michigan.

Athletics career
Sutherland competed as a fifteen year-old at the Canadian under-20 national championships in Montreal in 2019, and won silver in the 100m hurdles and bronze in the 200m. By 2021, Sutherland reportedly held the most provincial records in Saskatchewan track and field athletics history. Competing at the 2021 World Athletics U20 Championships, Sutherland set a new personal best time of 57.27s to finish third in the Women's 400 metres hurdles.

Sutherland won titles at national U-20 level in the 400m hurdles and also won gold for Saskatchewan at the 2022 Canada Summer Games in the 400m hurdles.

In February 2023 she helped the Michigan Wolverines to win the Big 10 Championship. Competing at the 2023 NCAA Indoor Championships, Sutherland set a new indoor 400m Canadian national record of 51.60s at the NCAA Indoor Championships on 11 March 2023. In June 2023, Sutherland won the 400m hurdles at the NCAA Outdoors Championships in Austin, Texas, running 54.45 to upset favourite Britton Wilson.

Selected for the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August 2023,  she qualified for the semi-finals.

Sutherland ran an early 2024 world leading time of 54.86 seconds in the women’s 400m hurdles at a meet in Gainesville, Florida in early April. She followed that up by running a personal best time of 23.32 seconds in the women’s 200 metres the following week at a meet in Lexington, Kentucky. At the end of the month, she set a new meet record of 55.36 seconds at the Penn Relays. In May 2024, Sutherland won her second Big 10 championship 400 metre hurdles in a time of 55.01 seconds.

On 6 June, in the prelims of the NCAA Outdoor Championships, she won her qualifying heat in a time of 54.04, breaking Sage Watson's Canadian 400 m hurdles record of 54.32 from 2019. Competing in the final two days later on 8 June, she ran another personal best and Canadian record to finish second in 53.26.