While De Grasse leads no-drama Canadian 4×100-relay team to final, Americans ousted after disastrous handoff

Opinion

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This article was published 05/08/2021 (1499 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TOKYO—Andre De Grasse, flushed with gold, dragged himself out of bed early on the morning after, laced up his bespoke sneakers and got his Olympic champion butt back to the track.

There’s something decently Canadian about that, an esprit de corps, when the corps is nowhere near his pantheon of excellence. The 200-metres victor from Wednesday night, pulling on his work boots (figuratively speaking; his rainbow Puma sprint spikes are aerodynamically sleek) and humping to the coal mine.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go …

Because it is a job, you know, racing. And the job on this early a.m. was helping his cadre qualify for the 4×100 relay final. Which the quartet — Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brendon Rodney are its other stakeholders — wouldn’t have done had De Grasse not committed himself to the heats, the team, the band of brothers.

Unlike, say, the disparate foursome of Americans, who appeared to be running not just in their own lanes — an accomplishment in itself, historically, for this violation-prone squad — but on their own separate planets, out of sync and out of sorts, slapstick fumbling on the exchange.

The Canadians have generally been relay-harmonized for several years, basically the same ensemble that copped bronze in the event in Rio. They were, however, around fifth and seemingly out of finals inclusion range in this heat when Rodney passed the stick to De Grasse. The 26-year-old from Markham may have been running on fumes — that was his seventh race in six days — but there was at least a quart of STP in his engine oil for that sizzling anchor leg he churned down the homestretch, crossing the line neck and neck with China’s Wu Zhiqiang (my, how the Chinese have sprung up as sprinters in Tokyo) with an equal time of 37.92.

That propelled Canada and China straight into Friday’s final, along with Jamaica (a morning-best relay time of 37.82 in the other heat), Italy (boosted by 100-metre gold medallist Lamont Marcell Jacobs), Germany, Ghana, Great Britain and Japan.

“I was just trying to be there for the team,” De Grasse said, less than 14 hours after leaving it all on the track in the 200, emotionally wrecked and physically exhausted.

Didn’t show.

“I knew in order for us to qualify for the final I had to just take one for the team. I came out here, I warmed up just to see where I was at, and I told coach I’m ready to go and I’ll see what I’ve got.”

He had plenty, more than enough to make the crucial difference for his teammates.

There’s a synchronicity, a muscle memory, to the Canadians, who hadn’t actually raced as a four-in-hand since the 2019 world championships in Doha, where they failed to qualify for the final.

“This was a good opportunity for us,” said Brown, who quickly put out of mind his sixth-place finish in the 200 the previous evening — his first individual final at the Games.

“Of course we changed some things and made some adjustments with the legs. But I’m feeling really confident about our chances going into the final.”

Well, who wouldn’t lap up a slick of confidence with De Grasse as a teammate on the relay roster. The Canadians weren’t entirely fluid in their baton exchanges and appeared to be losing ground when De Grasse got his hand on the rod and took off like the blazes.

You know which team went cacking into ignominy and far from the first time? The United States. A sixth-place finish shockingly left them out of the relay final looking in and looking at each other.

“We didn’t get the job done today, that’s all,” Fred Kerley, the silver medallist in the 100, bit off to reporters in the mixed zone.

The U.S. was near on a dream team, though it could have used Noah Lyles, bronze in the 200, and Christian Coleman, the reigning 100-metre world champion who is persona non grata in Tokyo for repeatedly missing doping tests. Lyles was allegedly too spent from the 200 the night before to even consider the relay. The Bizarro World version of De Grasse.

Nevertheless, the unit boasted Trayvon Bromell running leadoff — merely the fastest man on the planet this year, although he’s having a lousy Games and didn’t even survive into the 100 final — Ronnie Baker, fifth in that race, and Cravon Gillespie, a controversial choice since he hadn’t met the qualification standard for the individual 100.

Gillespie looked to be running in slo-mo on the anchor leg, overtaken by De Grasse and three other runners. The U.S. quartet stood around after in confusion and dismay, hoping they might at least qualify as one of the two fastest heat losers. They didn’t, their 38:10 was beaten by Germany and Ghana.

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The Americans won 15 of 18 Olympic titles from 1920 to 2000. But they haven’t claimed a men’s 4×100 since the turn of the century.

Thursday was the first time the U.S. swung and missed in qualifying since 2008. A disastrous handoff on the second exchange, Kerley to Baker, was the botch. Baker grabbed a handful of Kerley’s jersey instead of the baton on his first attempt. It actually took three attempts before they managed a manoeuvre that’s the oeuvre of relay racing.

The quartet took a beating on social media, including this lambasting commentary from American sprinting great Carl Lewis on Twitter: “The U.S. team did everything wrong. The passing system is wrong, athletes running the wrong legs, and it was clear that there was no leadership. It was a total embarrassment, and completely unacceptable …”

Relay that message back home.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno