Andre De Grasse was ‘always running, always jumping,’ proud mom says after his sixth Olympic medal
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/08/2021 (1498 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Andre De Grasse was an active kid, full of energy who “was always running, always jumping,” his mom says.
Noticing his early athleticism, Beverley signed her son up for house league soccer by the age of four.
Now, 22 years later, Beverley has watched her son run his way to three more Olympic medals at the Tokyo Games.
On Friday, De Grasse saved the day for Team Canada, making up a lot of ground to eventually overtake the Jamaican and Chinese runners in the final leg of the men’s 4×100 relay, and secure the bronze medal.
“He had to come back from such a deficit,” Beverley told the Star. “I think that was really special.”
It was the sixth Olympic medal for De Grasse, making him the most decorated male Canadian Olympian of all time and one behind swimmer Penny Oleksiak for the overall lead.
De Grasse also anchored Canada to bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Besides soccer as a child, De Grasse also picked up other sports, like baseball. But by the time he got to high school he had a dream of becoming a basketball player, and even played against Andrew Wiggins when both were in high school in the GTA.
The dream started to fall apart as he realized he wasn’t as tall as other players, according to his mother, so he moved onto track.
His high school coach took him to his first OFSAA meet where he was noticed by a development coach. Eventually, De Grasse got a scholarship to the University of Southern California.
“He progressed really fast,” Beverley said. “It’s unheard of for somebody to progress this fast in track and field.”
Beverley attributes De Grasse’s quick progression to the amount of sports he tried while growing up.
“That just helped him to be the athlete he is today,” she said, adding that other parents should allow their children to try out a number of sports at a young age too.
“Some parents just focus on one sport throughout the kid’s life but I think it’s important for kids to be allowed to be kids and play different sports. They just have to be kids and enjoy what they’re doing,” she said.
Training for the Tokyo Olympics was difficult for De Grasse, according to Beverley. While he was preparing in the United States at the University of Florida, the track was shut down for a period of time because of COVID-19 so the team had to train wherever they could — sometimes in grass fields.
“It’s been a rough 2020 for training,” she said.
This also meant Beverley had to go months without seeing her son and her three-year-old granddaughter, Yuri. De Grasse also has a son who was born in May.
With the pandemic prohibiting fans at the Tokyo Olympics, this meant Beverley couldn’t watch her son compete in person. Since his career started, she has attended all of his championships so this has been difficult and stressful for her.
She said De Grasse accepted the fact that the stands would be empty but still had to prepare himself mentally to perform under the circumstances.
It was still special for Beverley to watch her son win gold Wednesday, and set a Canadian record, in the men’s 200-metre sprint, even though she wasn’t able to cheer him on from the crowd.
She was able to speak with her son on the phone after the race but the two could hardly say anything to each other.
However, Beverley was able to tell her son how proud she was of him.
“Even though I expected him to win that medal, just actually seeing it felt so special and so real,” she said of his son who she describes as just a regular 26-year-old guy outside of sports.
“He already had the Canadian record in the 200 metres but seeing him lower it twice in the Olympics, that’s so special.”
Irelyne Lavery is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star. Reach her via email: ilavery@thestar.ca
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