Looking for more memories in Tokyo
Canadian star De Grasse has learned to attack pressure with a smile
When Canadian sprint star Andre De Grasse carried the country’s hopes and expectations to the 2016 Rio Olympics, his mom worried about the crushing weight on his angular shoulders.
Would her son, who’d burst onto the global scene only a year earlier, be able to handle the pressure?
As it turned out, there was no need to worry.
“He always performs better when it comes to the big races,” Beverley De Grasse said — and the track world quickly learned. “Ever since the beginning of his track career, I’ve never known him to be nervous. I’m more nervous than he is.”
De Grasse once again headlines a strong Canadian track and field team at the Tokyo Games. He’s proven both in Rio and at the 2019 world championships he has an inexplicable ability to flick the switch on when the lights are brightest.
“There’s obviously pressure, but I really can’t explain how I deal with it,” De Grasse said with a laugh.
De Grasse provided an entertaining storyline in Rio when he pushed Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, in the 200-metre semifinal.
With the rest of the field straining to keep up, De Grasse pulled even with Bolt in the final 20 metres, flashing the Jamaican a huge grin. Bolt grinned back.
The Olympic Channel’s YouTube video — titled “When Usain Bolt and Andre De Grasse smile, the whole world smiles with them” — has more than three million views.
Smiling through the Olympic pressure-cooker — who does that?
“No idea,” his partner, Nia Ali, said, laughing. “He’s just having fun.”
Five years later, De Grasse is still having fun, but life off the track has swelled. He and Ali are raising three kids: her son Titus, from a previous relationship, their three-year-old daughter, Yuri, and a son born May 14, whose name they’re keeping private.
Ali, the 2019 world 100-metre hurdles champion for the U.S., believes her partner’s ability to deflect pressure is partly the innocence of being a latecomer.
A multi-sport athlete as a kid, De Grasse was a City TV “athlete of the week” for basketball back in 2010.
“You don’t have to be big to play basketball, but you do have to have a big heart — the perfect description of Andre De Grasse,” the reporter said in the segment.
He often shared a high school court with Golden State Warriors swingman Andrew Wiggins. Track only became an option when coach Tony Sharpe spotted him at a high school meet, racing in baggy basketball shorts.
He had to take the circuitous U.S. small-college route through Coffeyville College in Kansas to get to Division 1 school USC.
“It’s a lot of pressure when you start out early on, when you’ve been running your whole life, and you’re like this prodigy,” said Ali, who also ran for USC. “Andre came a bit late, you know? I think he’s had so much learning and growing to do that the pressure doesn’t really get to him.”
A full life keeps De Grasse balanced, said Ali, who started dating him a few weeks before the Rio Games.
“He handles the pressure really well, and I think it’s because he knows that track is not who he is, it’s what he does,” Ali said. “He knows that, regardless of the outcome, there’s people who are still going to love him, there’s people who are still going to support him and it’s not the end-all, be-all. I think it’s really important.”
De Grasse is healthy after repeated hamstring injuries derailed two seasons. He missed the 2017 world championships, Bolt’s last major meet.
“If everything is clicking and everything is going right, it’s easy to stay positive,” De Grasse said.
“If training is going good, I feel healthy, and everything in the outside world is going good, I can just go out there and have fun and do my thing. I just try to control what I can control, just go out there and try to make it happen.”
The years he was dogged by injuries were tough, however. Social media wasn’t kind. Critics claimed he was done.
Beverley De Grasse, who was a sprinter in Trinidad & Tobago before moving to Canada, read some of the callous comments. She’s glad her son didn’t.
“I think the good thing with him is he doesn’t read a lot of the social media comments, so he doesn’t really know ... Thank God he doesn’t read those comments,” she said.
De Grasse said the two bad seasons strengthened his love for the sport.
“I’m grateful to be out there competing, representing my country,” he said in a recent phone call from Slovakia, where he was doing some finetuning before travelling to Tokyo. “I try to think of it that way, of being grateful. A couple years ago I couldn’t step on the track. It’s almost better to step on the track and not do well than be sitting at home, and not being out there.
“Having the opportunity, I try to never take it for granted. Not a lot of people are Olympians and now I get to go to my second Games, so I just try to go out there, take it all in and just enjoy the moment, embrace it.”
De Grasse has the sixth-fastest time in the 200-metre this season, and is No. 20 in the 100metre, although he’s only raced a couple of times at the shorter distance.
The men’s 100 semis and final are Aug. 1, while the 200 semi is Aug. 3 and the 200 final, Aug. 4.