Canada’s 4×100 Relay Gold: Success with a Stern Message

PARIS – Aaron Brown tried to warn everyone. But they didn’t listen.

Canada’s men’s 4x100m relay team claimed Olympic gold Friday night with a stunning performance from lane 9 at the Stade de France. With Andre de Grasse running the anchor leg, the Canadian won with a time of 37.50 seconds.

Entering the final, the Canadians had run the slowest qualifying time among the eight teams with DeGrasse, who has been battling a hamstring injury, admitting Thursday that his acceleration “wasn’t there.” However, Brown told reporters, “Don’t be fooled by the prelims.

I tried to warn them, they didn’t believe me,” Brown said. “It’s just like Eugene (in Oregon) (at the 2022 world championships). I knew we would watch film together, see what we needed to improve on 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 (the lane) in two, we can be in nine. Could be, we could be in the stands, it doesn’t matter.

As for running from Lane 9, Rodney said it’s worth it.

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“Lane 9 was probably the best lane, you can see we’re all kind of tall so the tight turns aren’t good,” he said. “They put us in lane 9 and that was where we were going to have the most success.

We didn’t have to worry about anyone, when you’re in the middle of the track you see everything moving around.

South Africa finished second in 37.57 seconds and Great Britain third in 37.61 seconds. The United States, who had their first handoff, were disqualified.

The situation looked very much like the world of 2022, especially in de Grasse’s case.

The seven-time Olympic medalist, who is now tied with swimmer Penny Oleksiak as Canada’s most decorated Olympians, had nearly a month to deal with a bout of Covid-19 and a foot injury.

He failed to qualify for the 100 final, withdrew from the 200 but came up with a legendary anchor leg in the 4×100 relay and beat the United States for the world title.

In Paris, de Grasse said he had a hamstring strain again days before he missed 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,” DeGrasse said. “To team up with these guys, that’s definitely how to end the Games with a gold medal.”

We all talked about that moment, like Aaron said, it’s a complete set … getting bronze in Rio, Tokyo, we got silver, now it’s cake to get gold with these guys. But it’s like icing. It’s an incredible feeling.”

When asked what was said Friday morning, Black jumped up and said “Wake up, come on, we’ve got a medal to win. realy That’s it.”

DeGrasse said he “wasn’t feeling so good” when he woke up, but his teammates cheered him on and cheered him on. But he did a two-hour warm-up to get his hamstring ready, nailed a pass with Rodney running the third leg, and said the adrenaline from the crowd helped.

DeGrasse, Brown and Rodney have been together since 2015, with Black joining the group at the 2021 Tokyo Games.

“They made sure, they’re like, ‘Hey, just try to be Andre DeGrasse, man. Just go out there and leave it all there,'” DeGrasse said. Half the battle is mental.

I just tried to go for it. The rest of the day helped too (with the difference between qualifying on Thursday morning and the final on Friday night). … Those guys did all the work for the most part to be honest, those guys had some incredible legs.

For Athletics Canada head coach Glenroy Gilbert, who heads the relay team and himself won gold in 1996, said he felt it was a “tall order” for Lane 9, but Friday’s win proved that. What is the team made of?

Absolutely flexible, right,” Gilbert said. “I told him yesterday in our briefing about the race from the qualifying round, … ‘You have to decide right now and here how you’re going to leave the Paris Olympics stadium.

“Are you going to leave him with a medal or are you going to finish him somewhere behind?” After the heat, which was terrible, that was the question I sent them off with. ‘You think about it and let me know what you think tomorrow.

“Right before he went into the call room, I won’t tell you what Aaron said but he used some interrogations but he’s like, ‘We’re going to do it.