Your Olympic questions answered: What's up with Andre De Grasse?
Can the star sprinter turn things around in time for Paris?
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Thanks to everyone who responded to last week's call for your questions about the Summer Olympics. Remember, no question is too big, too small or too weird! Send them to thebuzzer@cbc.ca and I'll continue to answer the best ones in this newsletter during the lead-up to the Paris Games.
Today's question comes from Ken in Ontario, who asks: How does Andre De Grasse rank in the world?
Short answer: not great. Canada's most celebrated track star is sixth in the world rankings for the men's 200 metres and 77th (!) in the 100m. The latter includes results in the 60m, the most common indoor distance.
The No. 1 guy in both rankings is American Noah Lyles, who's poised for Olympic stardom this summer after his Boltesque sweep of the 100, 200 and 4x100 gold medals at last summer's world championships. While De Grasse, who won Olympic gold in the 200 in 2021, remains the top Canadian in his signature event, he's been surpassed in the 100m rankings by his relay teammates Aaron Brown (No. 27) and Jerome Blake (73), with Brendon Rodney (79) two spots below the two-time Olympic 100m bronze medallist.
De Grasse has won a total of seven individual sprint medals at the Olympics and world championships. He also owns four major relay medals, highlighted by the 4x100 team's stunning gold at the 2022 world championships. But he's largely struggled in his solo events since the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where he won a relay silver along with his 200m gold and 100m bronze, battling assorted injuries along the way.
At the 2022 worlds in Oregon, De Grasse failed to get past the semifinals in the 100m and withdrew from the 200 to save his legs for the relay, ending his streak of seven straight medals in major individual events. At last year's worlds in Budapest, De Grasse placed sixth in the 200m and didn't compete in the 100 at all after failing to meet the qualifying time in any of his races leading up to the worlds. His decision to skip the opening round of the relay to rest for the final backfired when his teammates failed to advance.
De Grasse turned 29 in November, so it's fair to wonder whether his best days are behind him, especially in the 100. But he's shown many times that it's unwise to count him out — most recently at the Diamond League Final last September. After breaking 20 seconds in the 200m for the first time in two years at the regular-season finale in Brussels, De Grasse shocked the Final in Oregon by unleashing his signature finishing kick for a decisive victory in 19.76. "I know what I'm capable of if I'm healthy," De Grasse said, suggesting his injury struggles were finally behind him.
WATCH | De Grasse joins Athletics North to discuss what he learned writing his book:
To be clear, Lyles skipped that race along with worlds bronze medallist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana. And some of the stars who did compete, like Americans Erriyon Knighton and Kenny Bednarek, may not have been at their sharpest coming out of the worlds just a few weeks earlier.
Still, it was encouraging to see De Grasse recapture his big-race magic, and he later boasted that he wants to win three Olympic gold medals in Paris and break the Canadian 100m record of 9.84 seconds shared by Donovan Bailey and Bruny Surin (De Grasse's best is 9.89).
De Grasse announced in October that he'd parted ways with Irish coach John Coghlan to return to American Rana Reider, who worked with De Grasse from 2018 to 2022. The move came a few months after Reider, 53, received a one-year probation from U.S. safe-sport officials after admitting to a consensual romantic relationship with an 18-year-old female athlete. Reider was allowed to continue coaching elite-level athletes.
De Grasse said that he and his partner Nia Ali, a former world champion hurdler for the United States, made the decision to return to Jacksonville, Fla., where Reider is based, in part for family reasons. "It's a much better set-up for our kids with schools and extracurricular activities," said De Grasse, who has two young children with Ali.
De Grasse has competed twice so far this year, both in the 60m indoors. He placed sixth in Kazakhstan in January before finishing eight last month at the Millrose Games in New York City.
Canadian track fans had hoped to see De Grasse match up with the likes of Lyles, former 100 world champ Christian Coleman of the U.S. and Jamaica's Ackeem Blake in the 60m at this week's indoor world championships in Scotland. But De Grasse, who was listed as a provisional member of the Canadian team, will not be making the trip.
