De Grasse, Canada rebound to win 4x200 gold
Team earns measure of redemption for 4x100 DQ
The Canadian men's sprint relay team bounced back in a big way Sunday, racing to gold in the 4x200-metre event at the IAAF World Relays in the Bahamas.
Gavin Smellie, Brendon Rodney, Andre DeGrasse and Aaron Brown crossed the line in one minute, 19.42 seconds — the best time in the world this year — to defeat the United States (1:19.88) and Jamaica (1:21.09), which did not have Usain Bolt.
Canada's victory came a day after the 4x100 team of Akeem Haynes, Brown, Rodney and Grasse was disqualified from its final for dropping the baton during the exchange between Brown and Rodney.
That miscue cost the Rio Olympic bronze medallists a chance to qualify for this summer's IAAF world championships, but they rebounded in the 4x200, an unusual event that is not run at either the Olympics or the world championships.
"It did not go well yesterday but I'm glad we were able to break the curse, get the monkey off our backs and show the world what we are able to do in the relays," Brown said after anchoring the 4x200 win.
De Grasse, the silver medallist in the individual 200 at last year's Rio Olympics, where he also collected a bronze in the 100, credited a team effort for Sunday's victory.
"It was a great run by all of us," he said. "We just wanted to keep the stick today, but we told each other to trust each other and be patient. If we could do that, we could come away with the gold today."