DE GRASSE TAKES BRONZE
Bolt still the world’s fastest man
If Usain Bolt is the Muhammad Ali of his sport, as he has sometimes said, then the fellow who stood next to him behind the blocks of the Olympic 100 metres start Sunday night looked like a scrappy middleweight trying to step up in class.
That would be five-foot-nine Andre De Grasse, the Canadian challenger, who was hoping he could somehow dethrone the champ, even giving up eight inches in height and probably more than that in stride length.
He didn’t quite because Bolt is, well, Bolt.
The incomparable Jamaican put the first payment down on his attempt at the Olympic tripletriple — back-to-back-to-back 100, 200 and four-by-100-metre gold medals — by running a 9.81, far off his own world and Olympic records but just about as fast he had to run, to stay ahead of silver medallist Justin Gatlin, who finished in 9.89.
But churning alongside was De Grasse, who confirmed his standing as the third-fastest sprinter in the world by taking the bronze in a career-best 9.91 seconds, edging Bolt’s teammate, former world champion and London Olympic silver medallist Yohan Blake by two-100ths.
And he’s a guy. A guy finally won a medal for Canada.
“It was an amazing race. I’m feeling pretty good ... racing the fastest man in the world ever and Gatlin, these guys are spectacular,” De Grasse said.
“I’m speechless. They’re probably jumping up and down screaming back home in Canada.”
Bolt had come into these Games in mediocre form, and a hamstring injury he tweaked at the Jamaican Olympic trials had emboldened the Canadian to speculate: “I hear he’s not in the best of shape, so I feel like this is a good chance for me to take him down.”
It sounded cocky, and possibly a little fanciful, but he and Bolt are far from enemies, even if Bolt pronounces his name as Degrassi, like the TV show.
“He feels like I’m the next one, and I’m just trying to live up to it,” said De Grasse, who wrapped himself in a Canadian flag for his muted bronze victory lap, while Bolt mugged for the fans and the cameras and stopped for a selfie, and did The Lightning Pose — big, likable hotdog that he is.
Oh, and about the race: Bolt had a so-so start and Gatlin looked in good shape through 60 metres. But the six-foot-five Bolt hit his absurdly long stride and began eating up the track in huge bites that the American Olympic champ of 2004 — who has served two drug suspensions and was booed by the crowd when he was introduced — couldn’t begin to match. Nor could De Grasse.
“Bolt just has that extra gear. I tried to go with him,” De Grasse said, trailing off with a chuckle. As if. Still, his prediction didn’t look far off the mark in the semifinal, when he ran the second-best time to Bolt’s 9.86, a personalbest-equalling 9.92.
“Seeing him the semifinal, I thought: this is going to be exciting,” Canadian national team coach Peter Eriksson said. “But it gets cooler (later in the evening) so you can’t run as fast. I think he had a good start, he didn’t come out as fast as he should maybe in the first 30 or so, but he worked really hard all the way up to the finish line, so … fantastic race. He has a never-give-up mentality.”
Canada hadn’t had a 100-metre finalist since Donovan Bailey won gold in Atlanta 20 years ago, so Eriksson believes he’s looking at the future, with a 21-year-old from Scarborough, Ont., who could be the favourite four years from now, in the post-Bolt era, at the Tokyo Olympics.
On a night when Wayde van Niekerk ran the 400 metres in 43.03 seconds to shatter Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old world record — the first South African to win gold on the track in 88 years — the stage was set for the 100, which is the centrepiece of every Summer Olympics.
Bolt gave it an extra layer of sheen, by virtue of having been the only sprinter ever to win back-to-back Olympic 100 races, though Carl Lewis won consecutive gold medals (1984-88) after Ben Johnson was disqualified in Seoul.
Now, though everyone already knew it, Bolt stands alone as the greatest sprinter in history.
The 29-year-old from Sherwood Content, Jamaica, may not be the whole show in track and field, but it will be a poorer show when he moves on, which he says he will do after next year’s world championships.
Meanwhile, pull up a seat and enjoy his last two Olympic runs, the 200 and the relay.
If he goes out the way Michael Phelps did in his swan song, Rio’s slapdash Olympics will be remembered for as long as athletic genius is celebrated.