Andre De Grasse changes coaches, joins ALTIS training group

Andre De Grasse has made some big changes already within the past few weeks. Now he's made another huge move, deciding to go to a new coach, Stuart McMillan of the ALTIS group.

De Grasse, who turned 21 in November and recently signed an $11.25 million contract with Puma, is coming off a dream season. He won both the 100 metres and 200 metres at the NCAA Championships, following it up with gold in the sprint double at the Pan Am Games. Then he topped it off with a bronze medal at the world championships in the 100, running 9.92 seconds. The Canadian record of 9.84 is certainly a realistic target for De Grasse.

Despite this, he decided that a change in training environment was necessary heading into the 2016 Rio Olympics. He will now travel from Los Angeles to Phoenix to train with ALTIS (named after the sanctuary of the gods in Greece and site of the first Olympics before it was called Olympia).

"Now that I'm a professional athlete, I think it's best for me to be training with other professionals," said De Grasse from a hotel where he's residing until he finds a place in Arizona. "The setup at ALTIS seemed to be exactly what I need at this point in my career."

De Grasse has already had four coaches within the past four years, with ALTIS coach McMillan now being his fifth.

Rapid progression

De Grasse has made serious strides to becoming one of the world's best sprinters in a short amount of time. From 10.59 seconds in 2012 with coach Tony Sharpe in Toronto to 10.25 in 2013 with LaShawn Wright at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas.

In 2014 in his final year at Coffeyville, he then started training with coach Remuro Henry and ran 10.15, setting the table for a breakout year in 2015. That's when he burst onto the world scene with his 9.92 in the 100 and 19.98 in the 200, training with coach Caryl Smith-Gilbert in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California.

De Grasse isn't fazed by the coaching change.

"I've been blessed to have a lot of good coaches throughout my career, and they've all helped me a lot along the way," he said. "But I also believe strongly in my talent, and I believe that as long as I'm in good hands, if I stay focused I will just continue to get better. I'm in good hands at ALTIS."

Bailey's influence

McMillan, who has been coaching for the past 22 years, has coached over 60 Olympians at six Olympic Games, both summer and winter. He has developed his coaching skills under the tutelage of Dan Pfaff, former sprint coach of Canadian sprint legend Donovan Bailey, who introduced McMillan to Pfaff in 1995. McMillan wasted no time learning as much as possible.

Pfaff too, resides in Phoenix, and is an overall head coach at ALTIS.

McMillan is confident in the coaching support De Grasse will have at ALTIS, and over the past couple of days in sessions with De Grasse, has been amazed at how quickly he picks up what he's taught, how raw a talent he is, and how open he is to learning how to get better.

"The biggest thing when you get an athlete like Andre is just not to screw up," said McMillan just before practice on ALTIS grounds. "The [Olympic] 100 metres begins on Aug. 12, not far away, so the timing is a little tricky. But when you make a good decision, the timing is never wrong."

"It's difficult to run professionally in a college system. You don't always get the attention and resources you need as the college athletes are priority. Here Andre will have coaches with him whenever he needs them, physio, nutrition — everything will be at his disposal."

De Grasse still plans on getting his degree from USC before the end of 2016. He'll be taking some of his courses online and will also head back to USC in the fall.

"The Olympics comes along every four years," he says. "I can get my degree any year. But I am going to do everything I need to do to make sure that I am ready to perform my best for this Olympic year."