‘Joggler’ fame grows with World Record attempt

Lieutenant (Navy) Michael-Lucien Bergeron juggles while attempting to set a Guinness World Record in Joggling at a distance of 10 kilometres at Canada Games Place in Charlottetown, P.E.I., July 9. Photo: Carrie Gregory

Peter Mallett 
Staff Writer

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A Fleet-footed joggler of the Canadian Naval Reserves has struck again, this time as a potential new world record holder.

Lieutenant (Navy) Michael-Lucien Bergeron ran a 10-kilometre race while juggling in 34 minutes 47 seconds at Canada Games Place track and field facility in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on July 10. The time will officially be a world record once confirmed by Guinness World Records in four to eight weeks.

“It feels pretty good to potentially be the fastest in the world at joggling over 10 kilometres,” said Lt(N) Bergeron.

Lt(N) Bergeron is already a confirmed Guinness World Records holder for Fastest Half Marathon, which he set in Toronto in 2018.

Lt(N) Bergeron is a full-time Naval Warfare Officer at HMCS Queen Charlotte in Charlottetown. The athletic feat is known in the track and field world as ‘joggling’, which with three standard juggling balls suspended in midair.

He was convinced he had already beaten the standing 10-km record for joggling in 2018 with a time of 35 minutes 36 seconds. However, he did not qualify because of the number of witnesses and the track he ran on. This time, he ran on a regulation track and made sure he had video, pictures, and witness reports, and an official report from a certified timer to seal the deal.

Lt(N) Bergeron had already gained much notoriety at CFB Esquimalt, when on June 18 he won the 2022 Navy Run five-kilometre race with the fastest time of 17 minutes 3 seconds, also while joggling.

His soon-to-be world record garnered both local and national media attention, and included a segment on CBC’s The National news broadcast on July 12.

“I have received a lot of feedback and congratulations, and have spent the last three days answering questions from various media outlets across the country in both English and French,” he said. “I never thought it would blow up this big.”

Lt(N) Bergeron first began running when he was 13, and learned how to juggle when he was in high school. He says he did not combine the two activities until a university friend dared him. He then set a goal to juggle in a real race, which he achieved in 2014 during the five-kilometre Navy Run in Halifax. He finished in fourth place with a time of 19 minutes 47 seconds and has not looked back since.