Andre De Grasse struggled through much of the 2023 season, leaving the world championships without hardware for the first time ever. But he strung together his best pair of 200-metre times to end his campaign, won the Diamond League Final, and is suddenly feeling confident again.
Canada's Andre De Grasse, seen above holding the Diamond League Final trophy earlier in September, said he's feeling good heading into the Paris Olympics season."I definitely want to be the fastest Canadian ever. So, I have it in 200 [19.62 seconds]. I want to break the national record of Donovan [Bailey] and Bruny [Surin] of 9.84 [in the 100]. I'm so close to that. And that's something that I'm chasing every day," said De Grasse, who's best-ever time is 9.89.
Soon, training will ramp back up as De Grasse seeks to add to his Olympic medal count at the Paris Games next summer. With the semifinals scheduled within hours of the 200 final in Budapest in August, De Grasse chose to sit out the former in favour of the latter, where he placed sixth. The remaining members of the team — Aaron Brown, Brendon Rodney, Jerome Blake and Bolade Ajomale — failed to reach the final.Ajomale, De Grasse's ostensible replacement, badly faded in the anchor leg.
He added that the five-team members talked out his decision at worlds over lunch the following day and committed to bringing their "A game" to the Olympics. "That definitely gives me a lot of confidence to say, 'OK, I'm still there. I can still do this. I'm not getting old. I'm not getting washed up,'" he said. "I'm starting to feel like myself again. I'm starting to get the rhythm, get the speed back. I'm like, 'OK, now let's get into the off-season.'"
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