Open this photo in gallery

       Canada's Angela Bailey, left, competes in the 100-metre event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Ms. Bailey died at the age of 59 on July 31, 2021.

       F.S.GRANT/Canadian Olympic Committee / CP

       At a track meet in Budapest on July 6, 1987, Angela Bailey ran 100 metres in 10.98 seconds, faster than any Canadian woman had ever done.

       In about the time it takes to read a long sentence, the sprinter from the Toronto suburb of Mississauga etched her name into the Canadian record books.

       She was bumped from the record book a month later by a Toronto rival who shaved one-hundredth of a second off the record pace.

       Ms. Bailey, who has died at 59, was one of Canada’s top sprinters in an era now known for widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs by many of the biggest names in track. She was an outspoken opponent of drug-use in sport, an advocacy that did not endear her to several of her contemporaries.

       She had an ongoing feud with Toronto sprinter Angella (née Taylor) Issajenko, in whose shadow she found herself for much of her career. The Angela versus Angella contretemps reached a nadir in 1983 when the two runners had to be separated at a track meet in Toronto after exchanging heated words over drug use.

       Open this photo in gallery

       Ms. Bailey had an ongoing feud with Toronto sprinter Angella (née Taylor) Issajenko, in whose shadow she found herself for much of her career.

       JOHN MCNEILL/The Globe and Mail

       Ms. Bailey found vindication after other Canadian sprinters were exposed for having used drugs. In 1989, Ms. Issajenko admitted using steroids during testimony before an inquiry into drug use in sports.

       “Issajenko stole from me for 10 years,” Ms. Bailey told Toronto Star sportswriter Randy Starkman. “I do feel cheated. What can I say?”

       Ms. Bailey said she felt tainted by a widespread perception that all track athletes were doping.

       “A lot of us have worked so hard for what we’ve got, and it’s just not fair to be portrayed that way,” she said.

       At the same time, she called for Ms. Issajenko’s times to be erased from the record book.

       Story continues below advertisement

       “I would like to know how Angella Issajenko feels knowing that the Canadian record she competed so long for and took so many drugs to set is only one one-hundredth of a second ahead of my best time,” Ms. Bailey told Mr. Starkman. “Was it worth it all those years? Now everybody in the country knows that Angella Issajenko is a cheat.”

       Open this photo in gallery

       Margaret Birch, co-ordinator of the Ontario Bicentennial celebrations, gives a plate of cake to Ms. Bailey, Sept. 13, 1984.

       Franz Maier/The Globe and Mail

       The inquiry, headed by Ontario Associate Chief Justice Charles Dubin and popularly known as the Dubin Inquiry, was established after Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his sprint gold medal after testing positive for the banned steroid stanozolol at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

       In her own testimony, Ms. Bailey admitted she had once approached a Toronto doctor about the effects and side-effects of muscle-building chemicals, though she insisted she had no intention of using banned substances.

       She expressed frustration at competing against cheating athletes.

       “It didn’t matter whether you are going in with natural talent any more,” she told Justice Dubin in 1989. “You could just go to a pharmacy and you could be the fastest athlete in the world.”

       Ms. Bailey, who was born on Feb. 28, 1962, in Coventry, England, immigrated to Canada with her family in 1974. At age 15, she won three silver medals at the Canada Games in St. John’s, establishing herself as an up-and-coming athlete on the national scene.

       Open this photo in gallery

       Ms. Issajenko, right, races to the finish line beside Ms. Bailey (#633) and Esmie Lawrence (#534) at the Canadian National Championships held in Ottawa, Aug. 6, 1988.

       JEFF WASSERMAN/The Globe and Mail

       In 1978, she later won the Ontario high school championship in the 100 metres while running in warm-up pants, as she had neglected to bring her shorts to the stadium. The 5-foot-2 , 125-pound sprinter was the youngest track athlete at the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton later that year. She won a silver medal in the 4x100-metre relay with Patty Loverock, Margo Howie and Marjorie Bailey (no relation), all of Vancouver. Ms. Bailey won two other silver medals in the same event at Commonwealth Games in 1982 and 1986.

       She qualified for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow only to have Canada and other Western nations boycott the games to protest the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

       At the Los Angeles Olympics four years later, Ms. Bailey helped Canada win a silver medal in 4x100m relay behind a favoured American team led by the great Evelyn Ashford. Ms. Bailey ran the first leg, handing off to Marita Payne, who then passed the baton to Ms. Issajenko, with France Gareau running the anchor.

       Ms. Bailey also finished sixth in the 100m finals in 11.40 seconds in a race won by Ms. Ashford in 10.97, an Olympic record.

       At the Seoul Olympics, she was eliminated in the quarter-finals in the 100-metres and the relay team was eliminated in the semi-finals.

       Open this photo in gallery

       Ms. Bailey runs alongside Raelene Boyle of Australia in the women's relay during the 1982 Commonwealth Games held in Brisbane, Australia.

       Tony Feder/Getty Images

       She retired from competition in 1990 only to return to the sport eight years later, a rare comeback attempt for a sprinter. She helped a Canadian relay team finish sixth at the world championships, earning a berth in the 2000 Olympics, but injuries, including a sore quadricep, ended her competitive days.

       Ms. Bailey earned a degree in psychology from the University of Toronto and a law degree from Queen’s University in Kingston. She became a lawyer after building a career in real estate.

       She was a co-founder of Yokefellow Athletics, which offers sports coaching and training to Christian youth.

       In 1991, Athletics Canada erased 13 track and field records set by admitted drug users, including four by Ms. Issajenko. The decision by the sport’s governing body in Canada restored Ms. Bailey as the Canadian record holder at all four distances (50 and 60 metres indoors, 100 and 200 metres outdoors). While three of those standards have since been eclipsed, Ms. Bailey still held the 100-metre record at her death.

       Her 23.32 mark for the indoor 200 metres, set in 1984 in Sherbrooke, Que., remains the oldest indoor mark for Canadian women in track.

       She has been inducted into the Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame (1993) and the Athletics Ontario Hall of Fame (2014). In 1981, she won the Elaine Tanner Trophy as Canada’s outstanding junior female athlete.

       Ms. Bailey, who was diagnosed with lung cancer last fall, died at home on July 31. She leaves four brothers and a sister, as well as her mother, Monica Bailey. Her family announced she had been struggling with mental health issues for the past five years.

       Her death came during the Tokyo Olympics. CBC broadcast a video tribute to her sprinting career.

       “She ran like the wind and she’ll never be forgotten,” CBC host Perdita Felicien, a former Olympic hurdler, told a national audience.