Elizabeth Gleadle celebrates her gold medal win in javelinMark Blinch/The Canadian Press
Canada's Elizabeth Gleadle saved her best throw for last to claim the gold medal in the women's javelin at the Pan Am Games on Tuesday.
The Vancouver-born athlete was sitting third heading into her final attempt before unleashing a throw of 62.83 metres to defeat American Kara Winger by 1.39 metres.
Jucilene De Lima of Brazil took the bronze.
Melissa Fraser of Hillsburgh, Ont., finished seventh.
Gleadle opened the final with a throw of 59.33 metres which put her in first place and she maintained that advantage until the fourth round when De Lima overtook her and she fouled.
Winger jumped into the lead with her final throw of 61.44 metres, putting the pressure on Gleadle, who said she turned to the crowd to get her going.
"I was thinking 'Oh no, I'd better get it together,"' Gleadle said. "I was standing there and I thought to myself 'I bet the Canadian anthem would sound a whole lot better from the podium if I was on it,' so that inspired me to throw better."
As the crowd of several thousand at the new stadium at York University clapped in unison, Gleadle was overcome with emotion.
"It's a pretty cool feeling," she said. "When everyone in the crowd is looking at you, and everyone is expecting you to perform, and you know that 95 per cent of the people in the crowd are truly rooting for you to do well. . . It's a pretty electrifying feeling, it's very whole-body, it's like your whole system just lights up like a Christmas tree.
"It's like if you've ever been in love and your heart is about to explode with happiness. It's that exact same feeling, when you realize how overjoyed you are."
Gleadle finished 12th at the 2012 Olympic Games in London where she was the second youngest finalist in this event and fifth at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Toronto's Shawnacy Barber equalled a Pan Am Games record on his way to winning the gold medal in the men's pole vault.
The event ended up being a showdown between Barber and German Chiaraviglio of Argentina who went back and forth, trading the lead until Barber cleared 5.80 metres. Chiaraviglio, who had already cleared a personal best 5.75 metre, then failed to clear 5.85, leaving him with the silver medal.
Jake Blankenship of the United States and compatriot Mark Hollis were both awarded the bronze medal after clearing 5.40 metres.
With the gold medal safely in his grasp, Barber, a former Pan Am junior champion and bronze medalist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, attempted but failed to set a new Pan Am Games record by clearing 5.93 metres.
Jason Wurster of London, Ont., finished sixth.
The double gold medals bring Canada's total to 57 and 150 total medals to date.
In heats for the men's 100 metre event, Canada's Andre De Grasse won his qualifier in a time of 10.06 seconds, advancing to the semi-finals on Wednesday.
In the women's 5,000 metre final, Canadian's Jessica O'Connell and Natasha Labeaud placed seventh and eighth respectively. The gold medal was won by Brazilian Julia Dos Santos in a personal best time of 15.45.97. Mexico's Brenda Flores was second while Kellyn Taylor of the United States finished third.
Away from the track, Canada's men's and women's table tennis teams picked up bronze medals. The Canadian trio of Alicia Cote, Anqi Luo and Mo Zhang dropped a 3-0 decision to the United States in the women's semi-final while Marko Medjugorac, Pierre Theriault and Eugene Wang lost the men's semi-final, 3-0, to Brazil.
Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report
Countries are sorted by most gold medals