Sprinter Jerome Blake adjusts to life as an Olympic champion

B.C.'s Jerome Blake is bringing home gold. 

Blake, who was born in Kelowna, B.C., and trains in Burnaby, was part of the men's 4x100-metre relay team that won the gold medal at the Paris Olympic Games last week. It was the first time the Canadian men had won the event since 1996.

Blake spoke with CBC's Gloria Macarenko from Paris.

WATCH | Jerome Blake recalls Olympic gold win:

Burnaby's Jerome Blake recalls helping Canada win relay-sprint gold

4 months ago

Duration 7:54

Jerome Blake, who ran the second leg of the Canadian men's 4x100-metre relay in Paris, looks back at his team's thrilling victory.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

It was electric here in the CBC newsroom when your team won. When we were watching you win we were all standing up and cheering. Was it obvious to you that your teammate Andre de Grasse was crossing the line first at that moment?

Actually, no, because of where I finished — I finished on the second bend at the 200-metre start. So I went in like 50 more metres and I started looking at the jumbotron, but it looked funny because I couldn't see. I was like, 'Oh man, I hope you're winning right now.'

I'm looking and it looked like we're winning. I was like, 'OK, that looks really good.' And then I heard in the stadium announcers saying 'Canada wins, Canada wins.' 

I was like, 'What?' So I started running and I was like, 'Oh my goodness.'

I put my hand on my head and I just stopped and I lay on the ground. I was like, 'Oh no, I just really did that.' I got up and started running to find the rest of the guys, but it took forever to get out so far away.

There was a protest launched right away as soon as the race finished.

So we're just watching, and then it says 'Canada wins.' And like once we see that we're like, 'OK, we're good.' 

It's like slowly setting in even now. I woke up this morning, I looked at the box, the medals, and I was like, 'Oh man, I'm really an Olympic champion.'

You are the champion for sure. It's widely acknowledged that this gold medal, this is a result of just some incredible, incredible teamwork. I know this kind of connection, this kind of trust, this kind of build, these beautiful handoffs — this is the result of several years of training together as a group. So tell us more about that.

This team is really interesting, because a lot of people don't understand the three of those guys — Brendan, Aaron and Andre — they've been together since 2013.

Andre is always an anchor. Brendan was also the third leg and then Aaron actually used to run second and then they had somebody else start. 

The head coach told me, 'Look, you're the right man for the job, but you need experience. You need to go out there and run so we can move other people around to put you in a position that we feel is best for you.'

The head coach calls me banshee sometimes. If you know what a banshee is, they just get up and go, they're just running. 

He called me 'the runaway banshee' sometimes. Once I get a good acceleration, I'm going like the banshee. 

Before we went out, the coach was like, 'You need to do the banshee, we need you back. You need to put this in a good position.'

The marks are big, but we still have so much more room to go. This team can go a lot faster because even when Aaron's handoff was not clean, missed my hand … everyone thinks all you're so clean and flawless, but there are still simple mistakes that we're making. We want to clean those up more and more or we're going to go a lot faster, that's for sure.

You spoke to CBC before the Games began. You described your team as underdogs at the time. So how do you think that factored into the race? Was it like a nothing-to-lose scenario? 

No, everyone else thinks we're underdogs, but to us we know we can beat all of them. We're not worried about them because the thing we're really good at is running under pressure. 

As a team, we've done it multiple times because everyone puts a lot of pressure on themselves to win. The only thing we were putting pressure on are the handoffs. We just need to be clean and that's the only thing we worry about. 

Now that the 2024 Games are behind you, what does your future hold?

I've still got a lot more running left in me, so I'm focused on that. I've got to finish up the season now, I've got three more competitions then I'm done and will take a well-earned break and go home, visit my family, get to show some people the medals and see some people and go back to work because the main goal is to be a world beater in '24 and '25.