‘Never count us out:’ Canadian men run to stunning 4x100 Olympic gold after favoured Americans botch exchange

Well, maybe not a surprise for him or teammates Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brendon Rodney, who qualified with the slowest time for Friday night’s final and raced in the outside lane.

“Never count us out, no matter what lane,” Brown said. “We could be in the stands, it doesn’t matter. Give us a lane and give us an opportunity and these guys can make magic together.”

The fleet-footed quartet credited their years of experience together. But the victory was particularly special for De Grasse, the Markham sprinter whose career Olympic medal haul — two gold, two silver and three bronze — ties him with swimmer Penny Oleksiak for the most by a Canadian.

“It’s an incredible feeling and it’s a great way for me to end the Games,” he said.

Surprising, too, given the controversy and the physical concerns that seemed to follow the Canadian team around Paris’s purple track.

Brown, of Toronto, was sick for his 100-metre heat and false-started out of that race, then snuck into the semifinals of the 200 metres but went no further.

De Grasse ran a season’s best 9.98 seconds in the 100 semis, but it was not good enough to advance. And he said he aggravated a hamstring injury in the 200, where again he didn’t get past the semis.

The relay win also came after De Grasse’s coach, Rana Reider, had his credentials revoked after news of a lawsuit accusing him of sexual and emotional abuse surfaced. 

“It’s very special,” De Grasse said of the gold medal, which he ranked with his other Olympic title in the 200 metres in Tokyo in 2021.

“This one was probably the hardest one, to be honest. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t smooth sailing like the last Olympic Games. It definitely feels like a great moment for me and it’s probably one of the few that I’ll probably remember.”

There were a few other elements that had a hand in the result. American sprinter Noah Lyles, the 100 champion and 200 bronze medallist, pulled out Thursday with COVID-19, and the Jamaicans, 4x100 winners in 2012 and 2016, failed to make the final. South Africa, in second, and Great Britain joined Canada on the podium.

Even if Lyles had been in Friday’s race, it would have been over for the Americans before it was his turn to run. A botched exchange of the baton between the first and second legs led to the disqualification of the favourites and extended a drought that has seen them fail to win a medal in the event since earning silver in Athens in 2004.

“Whoever gets clean hand-offs is usually the winner,” De Grasse said. “It doesn’t matter about who the four fastest guys were … You have to get the stick around as well.”

Brown also spoke of the advantage of team chemistry and how the Canadian sprinters enjoy each other’s company off the track.

“As much as people want to talk about foot speed and who has the fastest legs, you can’t beat chemistry,” Brown said.

Brown, Rodney and De Grasse won bronze together in the 2016 Games in Rio, while all four were on Tokyo’s silver-medal-winning relay team.

“These guys motivated me,” De Grasse said. “They just said, ‘Hey, just try to be Andre De Grasse. Just go out there and leave it all out there.’ ”

That’s what he did. That’s what all four men did.

De Grasse revealed that he spent two hours, much longer than usual, warming up to get his hamstring ready for the race. That followed an entire day of rest, which allowed him to do what was necessary to get the baton across the finish line.

And just before the race, the four fine-tuned their hand-offs until they were as close as they could be to perfection.

“These guys did most of the work to be honest,” De Grasse said. “Aaron ran an amazing curve, Brendon does his thing on the curve as well. They gave it to me in good position and I just had to high-knee it home.”