PARIS – Aaron Brown tried to warn everybody. But they didn’t listen.
Canada’s men’s 4×100-metre relay team claimed Olympic gold on Friday night at Stade de France in a stellar performance from Lane 9. With Andre De Grasse running the anchor leg, the Canadians posted a winning time of 37.50 seconds.
Entering the final, the Canadians had run the slowest qualifying time among the eight teams with De Grasse, who has been battling a hamstring injury, admitting his acceleration “wasn’t there” on Thursday. However, Brown told reporters, “don’t be fooled by the prelims.”
“I tried to warn them, they didn’t believe me,” Brown said. “This is exactly like (2022 world championships in) Eugene (Oregon). I knew we were gonna get together and watch the film, see what we needed to improve and I never stopped believing.
“These guys can do incredible things when we put our minds to it and it showed today. Never count us out, no matter what lane. … We can be in (lane) two, we can be in nine, we can be in the stands, it doesn’t matter. … These guys can make magic together.”
As far as running from Lane 9 goes, Rodney said it was of benefit.
“Lane 9 was probably the perfect lane, you could see that we’re all kind of tall so the tight turns wouldn’t have been good,” he said. “They put us in Lane 9 and that was where we were gonna be most successful.
“We didn’t have to worry about anybody, when you’re in the middle of the track, you see everything going around.”
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South Africa was second in 37.57 seconds and Britain third in 37.61. The United States, which botched its first handoff, was disqualified.
The situation looked almost exactly like the 2022 worlds, especially in De Grasse’s case.
The seven-time Olympic medallist, now tied with swimmer Penny Oleksiak as Canada’s most decorated Olympians, had been about a month removed from a bout with COVID-19 and dealing with a toe injury.
He failed to qualify for the 100 final, withdrew from the 200 but came through in the 4×100 relay with a legendary anchor leg to defeat the United States for the world title.
In Paris, De Grasse said he re-aggravated a hamstring some days back after missing the 100 and 200 finals, the first time in his career he missed an Olympic final.
But he pulled Canada from third to first with an 8.89-second anchor leg to give Canada its first Olympic relay gold since 1996.
“It’s amazing,” De Grasse said. “To team up with these guys, of course to end the Games like this with a gold medal.”
“We all talked about this moment, like Aaron said, it’s a complete set … got the bronze in Rio, Tokyo we got the silver, now it’s kind of like icing on the cake to get the gold medal with these guys. It’s an incredible feeling.”
When asked what was said Friday morning, Blake jumped in to say “Wake up, let’s go, we got a medal to go win. That’s it.”
De Grasse said he “wasn’t feeling that great” when he woke up, but his teammates motivated and hyped him up. But he did a two-hour warm-up to get his hamstring ready, nailed down the pass with Rodney, who runs the third leg, and said the adrenalin from the crowd helped.
De Grasse, Brown and Rodney had been together since 2015, with Blake joining the group at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
“They made sure, they’re like, ‘Hey, just try to be Andre De Grasse, man. Just go out there and leave it all out there,’” De Grasse said. “Of course that’s half the battle, the mental.
“I just tried to go for it. The rest yesterday helped too (with the gap between Thursday morning qualifying and Friday night’s final). … These guys mostly did all the work to be honest, these guys had some incredible legs.”
For Athletics Canada head coach Glenroy Gilbert, who heads the relay team and won gold in 1996 himself, said he felt it was a “tall order” from Lane 9 but Friday’s win proved what the team is made of.
“Absolutely resilient, OK,” Gilbert said. “I said to them yesterday in our briefing of the race from the qualifying round, … ‘you have to decide right now and right here how you’re going to leave the Paris Olympics stadium.
“Are you gonna leave it with a medal or are you gonna leave it finishing somewhere in the back?’ After the heats, which was horrible, that was the question I sent them off with. ‘You think about that and let me know what you think tomorrow.’
“Right before they went into the call room, I won’t tell you what Aaron said but he used some expletives but he’s like, ‘We’re going to get this done.’”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2024.
© 2024 The Canadian Press