De Grasse ready for Rio

If you didn't know Canadian sprint star Andre De Grasse, it would be tough to pick him out among the seven runners he trains with in Phoenix, Ariz.

At a practice earlier this year, his group was working on starts, powering out of the blocks and sprinting for 40 metres. De Grasse, his red hoodie pulled up over his head, was never first to the line, and a couple of times the world bronze medallist was last.

De Grasse isn't always the slowest at practice. He's almost never the fastest either.

But like sport's greatest athletes, something happens when the bright lights of the biggest track meets are switched on. And there's no bigger track meet than the Olympics.

"He's a big-time competitor," said his coach Stuart McMillan. "I've got eight guys in my training group, and he's pretty much the slowest every day. Every single day he gets blasted by everybody.

"Then they all wonder what's going on when he shows up and blasts them in a race."

The 21-year-old from Markham, Ont., will race the 100 and 200 metres and 4x100 relay at the Rio Olympics. He hasn't yet run the blistering times he produced last season as he's adjusted to a slew of changes in his first year as a pro.

He's the type of athlete scouts look for, coaches lust after and opponents fear — one with and uncanny ability to rise to the occasion.

"The greatest always have that ability, whether it be going back to Donovan (Bailey), or before him Carl Lewis, or current athletes like Usain (Bolt)," McMillan said. "Usain wins many races before he sets up on the track, because people are intimidated by his ability to show up.

"You saw the same with Bailey. I see the same with Andre. It's clear he's able to bring a different set of intensity when the pressure is higher."

Bailey ran to gold in the 100 metres at the 1996 Olympics. He also shares the Canadian 100-metre record of 9.84 seconds with Bruny Surin that De Grasse is chasing.

Sitting on a hill overlooking the finish line of Edmonton's Foote Field at the recent Canadian Olympic trials, Bailey watched De Grasse with a keen eye. He sees a lot of himself in the young sprinter.

"Andre, our personalities are different and our mannerisms might be slightly different, but the ability to be a killer is exactly the same," Bailey said.

McMillan compares that killer instinct to two-time Olympic bobsled champion Kaillie Humphries, one of the 60 Olympians the Canadian speed and power specialist has guided over six games.

"Kaillie shows up at an Olympic Games, and she's unflappable," McMillan said. "You know she's going to be driving her best, performing her best when it's the most pressure on her. And she intimidates everybody else with that sort of intensity."

De Grasse, who's only competed seriously for four years — and not quite three years at a world-class level — will need that killer instinct when he makes his Olympic debut, in what Bailey calls a "completely different animal" than the world championships.

"The Olympics is the Holy Grail, the Olympics is where every single athlete in any single sport aspires to get a gold medal," he said.

De Grasse's mom Beverley admitted she's worried about her son, and the pressure that's been piled onto his shoulders, saying "the expectations are so high."

De Grasse, however, said he's not worried.

"I kind of just go out there, I think of it always as I'm having fun," he said. "My family, all my supporters, they do a great job of keeping the pressure off of me, so I'm just going to go out there and have fun, don't think about it too much.

"For me, this is my first Games, so I'm excited to be here, but obviously I want to get on the podium."

De Grasse is five foot nine, and more slender than most of his rivals. His left arm is a kaleidoscope of tattoos, several years in the making. There's a pair of Maple Leafs on his arm, to show his Canadian pride. There's a prayer, a dove, and the word's "God's Gift." He got his first tattoo at age 16, his mom's name "Beverly," on the left side of his chest.

Few outside the sport knew of the Canadian before he exploded onto the global stage last season. It was his remarkable performance at the NCAA championships, where he won both the 100 and 200 metres less than 45 minutes apart, that spoke to McMillan. He saw greatness.

"Andre was clearly not the favourite, Trayvon Bromell was the favourite in the 100 and 200 and Andre absolutely destroyed him in both of them. Absolutey destroyed him," McMillan said. "So that's when the track world stepped up and said this guy's is a bigtime competitor."

It's been several months of changes for the young star, though, as McMillan focused first on getting De Grasse back to full health.

When De Grasse turned pro around Christmas and moved to Phoenix to train with McMillan and Altis, he still wore the weariness of a gruelling 54-race season.

"His feet and his lower legs were battered. He had some fairly significant issues with his shins and his feet that took probably three months to try to get through," McMillan said. "We really unloaded him, and then started building from that."

Once healthy, De Grasse had to find his rhythm running as a pro. He was accustomed to competing in several races every weekend at USC. He can virtually count his races this season as a pro on two hands.

"It's all a rhythm thing," McMillan explained. "He's a confident guy, he knows he's fast, but especially for rythmical sprinters like Andre, they need to race frequently."

"And it's not just him, it's all first-year pros out of the NCAA system, that's their greatest challenge, they're used to racing multiple times every weekend. . . and none of these (major meets like the Diamond League) are heats and finals, they're all one-offs. It's a really difficult skill to learn, to be able to bring that same sort of intensity to one-off races."

De Grasse has adjusted well, and is rounding into form at just the right time. He ran his first sub 10-second 100 of the season at the Olympic trials, winning in 9.99. Last week, he edged former world record-holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica to win the 100 at an American Track League meet in Houston.

"I think we're in really good shape right now," McMillan said. "Absolutely, no question, he will be at his best at the Olympics."