De Grasse heads male class of ’16
De Grasse’s blistering speed wins over Postmedia’s voters
With a Canadian flag draped over his shoulders, Andre De Grasse wondered out loud about the scene unfolding in his hometown some 8,200 kilometres north of Rio de Janeiro.
Casually, without any outward sign of emotional strain, the 21-year-old De Grasse had just nailed a personal-best time of 9.91 seconds in the 100-metre race to win Olympic bronze behind only the immortal Usain Bolt and the aging Justin Gatlin.
“I’m speechless,” De Grasse said. “They’re probably jumping up and down screaming back in Canada.”
Those screams turned to shrieks a few days later when photographers captured De Grasse cruising up to Bolt in the 200-metre semifinal and sharing a laugh with the giant, all while running at warp speed.
De Grasse does not play hockey, but, in that moment, he vaulted to legend status in Canada.
Newspapers and websites around the world ran images of the bromance between the diminutive Canadian and the behemoth Bolt on Rio’s blue track.
The native of Markham, Ont., won three medals — a silver and two bronze — in Rio. IAAF, the international track federation, named him its rising star for 2016.
And now, the University of Southern California sociology major is Postmedia’s male athlete of the year — beating out Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby and Olympic high jump gold medallist Derek Drouin in a survey of sports writers and editors across the country.
“It’s hard to take in,” De Grasse said of his mind-blowing year in a phone interview from Los Angeles.
“It’s hard to soak in. For me, I really thought of all the things I accomplished when I went home and they had a parade for me. I saw a lot of people and just the way they reacted when they saw me.”
De Grasse wiped away tears that September day in Markham. He thanked his mother Beverly and grinned for the cameras holding a road sign for the newly minted Andre De Grasse Street.
Finally, the magnitude of what he accomplished in Rio hit him.
“It’s part of the naivete of a young athlete who is pretty new in the game — they don’t always understand the degree of the pressure that’s on them,” De Grasse’s coach, Stu McMillan, said from Phoenix. “Because he’s down here, he doesn’t see the pressure that’s exerted on him externally in Canada. He’s kind of immune to it. He doesn’t know how he is supposed to act. He doesn’t know he’s supposed to be nervous walking into a stadium with 80,000 people and a billion and a half people watching on TV.”
Only five years ago, De Grasse competed in his first track meet wearing basketball shorts and borrowed spikes. He stood upright and sideways instead of crouching in the blocks.
Given his trajectory, the future is boundless for the kid Puma signed to a shoe deal worth US$11.25 million as the heir apparent to Bolt.
Not that De Grasse wants to dwell on what he has accomplished.
“I reset and I just start all over,” he said. “You have to put those memories at the back of your mind, because you’ve got to get ready for the upcoming season.” McMillan said De Grasse pressed too early approaching the halfway mark in the 100-metre Rio final. The coach blamed himself for devising an aggressive game plan in the 200-metre final that resulted in De Grasse running out of steam as he neared the finish. Without those two errors, McMillan figures De Grasse could have won silver in the 100 metres and gold in the 200.
De Grasse just turned 22 — Bolt is 30 — so more chances should lie ahead.
“My initial reaction and his initial reaction were ones of a little bit of disappointment,” McMillan said. “In hindsight, looking back, it’s an amazing accomplishment — three medals at his first Olympic Games as a kid, basically. Whenever you’re at the top of your field, you look at ways to improve upon things that don’t necessarily go great for you.”
De Grasse wrote his last final exam on Dec. 13, wrapping up his degree — “If he didn’t pass, I’m going to scream at him,” McMillan joked — and returned the next day to Phoenix to resume training.
The next big thing on the calendar: One final shot at Bolt at the 2017 world track and field championships Aug. 5 to 13. Bolt has repeatedly said he will retire after the showdown in London.
“It’s going to be an epic feeling,” De Grasse said. “It’s his last one. I just have to go out there and try to compete my best with him.”
Make no mistake: De Grasse plans to win.
“As much as Andre likes and respects Bolt and as much as I respect Bolt — he’s an awesome guy and he’s awesome for the sport — we want to send him out for a loss,” McMillan says. “There’s nothing Andre would like more than to win the 100 and for Usain to finish his career with a world championship silver or bronze.”
Imagine the scene on Andre De Grasse Street if that happens.
It’s hard to take in … For me, I really thought of all the things I accomplished when I went home and they had a parade for me.