DeGrasse out to put Canada in the race

Profile of a world class sprinter: High strung, singular, egotistical, moody, defiant, paranoid. Often like a wide receiver in the National Football League: part athlete, part diva. Andre DeGrasse seems like none of the above.

“He’s not at all like that,” said Peter Eriksson, head coach of Canada’s track and field team at the Pan American Games. “He’s a pretty relaxed guy. I haven’t seen any of that prima donna in him.

“Maybe that’s the old guard. Maybe you see that from wannabes. You can behave normally and still succeed. I worked with Linford Christie and I didn’t see much of that in him. Andre’s really relaxed, really calm.”

Really different in a most Canadian way. Those who know DeGrasse best describe him as incredibly focused, small sized for a sprinter and almost ego-free. Focused we understand. Ego-free doesn’t seem like part of the breed.

“I was surprised to see how tiny he was,” said Bruny Surin, the one-time national team sprinting star. “To see a small body like that who runs that fast. He’s not very muscular. I’ve not seen that very often.

“And then I talked to him. And I was surprised how humble he was. I talked to his mom and then I understand. He’s very down to earth, she’s down to earth, very respectful.

“When I ran, I was known in French as the Quiet Lion. But you have to understand what the 100 metres is all about. It’s a jungle. Everybody wants to be the lion, king of the jungle. You don’t expect to see this little guy as king of the jungle.”

Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, is part freak, part show, part remarkable. He’s 6-foot-5. Ben Johnson, once the fastest man in the world, looked like he could win the 100 and then body slam the rest of the field. Donovan Bailey was tall and built, when he was Olympic and world champion, all about chest thumping and anger and histrionics.

DeGrasse, who grew up in Scarborough, Ont., set NCAA records at USC, and has yet to celebrate his 21st birthday, is well on his way to being world class. The potential is frightening. What he’s managed in just three years of running is almost impossible to quantify.

This isn’t the way the sport usually works. People don’t come out of nowhere very often and become world class. And this is what makes next week at the Pan Ams so exciting. There have been more than 70 Canadian medal winners in the first five days of competition, but there has yet to be that signature moment.

At the Summer Olympics, everything stops when the 100-metre final is being run. The signature moment of these Games could come next Wednesday when the kid sprinter runs the 100 against a field that won’t be determined until Friday.

“I don’t think he knows what’s coming at him,” said Eriksson.

And in a way, that’s the beauty of DeGrasse. He doesn’t get caught up on himself. After winning the 100 and 200 metres in the NCAA championships and repeating it at the Canadian track and field championships — and setting a Canadian 200 record along the way — his cellphone has basically exploded.

“It’s our job to ensure he doesn’t get overwhelmed by everything,” said Eriksson. “I don’t think it’s hit him yet. How people are going to respond to him.

“And I’m worried about how Canadians are going to view him. That we’re going to set the expectations too high and not give him enough time to grow. That’s my worry, really. We have so few stars that sometimes we take them and make them a mega star before they are ready.”

In the past, some Olympians have melted under national expectations. But understand this: his events in the Pan Am Games and his focus on the 100 and the relay at the world championships next month in Beijing represent a beginning for him on the world stage.

Former Canadian champion Surin didn’t run his personal best time of 9.84 until he was 32. Bailey set the world record and Olympic record at 28. DeGrasse is just a kid with natural skills. He has already run sub-10 100-metre times and sub-20 200-metre times.

“You want to say this is what he’s capable of being, but that’s a really hard question,” said Eriksson. “He’s capable of doing anything. But you don’t know what kind of injuries he’ll have (sprinters always have injuries). You hope he’s in the right coaching and learning environment. You hope everything is going to be set up with everything in mind to make him better. But you can’t predict what he’ll become. This is a fragile business.”

Surin agrees: “The question isn’t talent. The question now is, will he take very good care of his body, and I mean invest in his training, invest in his therapy. In my opinion, that’s the key to lasting long. If he does that, I predict a great future for him.”

The tattoo on DeGrasse’s forearm reads: hope.

And he has brought hope to a sport we have all but disappeared in. There was once Johnson and Surin and Bailey, all winning at the highest levels, but since Bailey won gold in Atlanta in 1996, and followed it with relay gold with Surin, there hasn’t been much hope.

And DeGrasse himself understands that much.

“I’m capable of competing against the big dogs,” De Grasse told The Globe and Mail. “Canadian sprinting hasn’t been around for what? Maybe 15 years. No one knows about Canada anymore. Everyone’s hearing about the U.S. running fast, Jamaica running fast. I want Canada to be back up there.”