Six-time Canadian Olympic medalist Andre De Grasse finished third in his 200-metre semi-final heat in Paris on Aug. 7.Petr David Josek/The Associated Press
It’s been a rocky Olympic Games for Canadian star sprinter Andre De Grasse.
He didn’t advance to the 100-metre final, he will not defend his Olympic title in the 200 metres, plus he’s dealing with an ousted coach, an injury, and his medal chances are dwindling.
The six-time Canadian Olympic medalist finished third in his 200-metre semi-final heat Wednesday night at the Games, failing to advance to the final in his best event.
Earlier this week, De Grasse’s coach, Rana Reider, was expelled from the Games. Now Canada’s most decorated male Summer Olympian has revealed that he’s also hampered by a nagging hamstring injury.
The 29-year-old, in his third Olympics, ran the 200 metres in 20.41 seconds on Wednesday, well off his season’s best 19.98 or the personal-best 19.62 he ran for gold in Tokyo. (He won the silver in the event in Rio.) He was 10th among all semi-finalists in Paris on Wednesday, not fast enough to make the eight-man final on Thursday night.
De Grasse said that he injured his hamstring last month, and reaggravated it in Paris. He figures he didn’t recover well between running in the 100-metre semi-final round on Sunday and the first round of the 200-metre qualifying the next day. He first noticed the pain while warming up on Monday and got an ultrasound, which showed the hamstring was inflamed. He didn’t feel his best for Wednesday’s 200-metre semi.
“I warmed up and kind of didn’t really feel it,” De Grasse said. “I just tried to come out here today and see what I could do. But it was going to be really tough to come away with a fast time.”
This week, the Canadian Olympic Committee and Athletics Canada pulled the accreditation of the sprinter’s personal coach after “new information” surfaced about Reider.
The coach had previously admitted to a consensual relationship with an athlete he’d coached, and was given a penalty of a one-year probation, which started in May, 2023. He was not barred from coaching during that time.
But Reider is now being sued in Florida by three athletes who used to train under him. The allegations against the coach include sexual assault, sexual harassment and verbal harassment. The allegations have not been tested in court and Reider has not been charged with any crime. Athletics Canada CEO Mathieu Gentès would not confirm that the details of the civil suits match the information shared by USA Track and Field on Sunday evening, but said Athletics Canada hadn’t previously been aware of the new accusations, and Gentès immediately asked the COC to revoke the credentials.
De Grasse said Wednesday that he didn’t know about the issue with Reider.
De Grasse had worked with Reider starting in 2018 and then left for a time while the coach had been under scrutiny. De Grasse later returned to working with Reider in the fall of 2023.
“He served his time, everything was good, I went back, my federation and everybody said it was good to go. He was all clear,” De Grasse told reporters in Paris on Wednesday.
“They give him the [Paris] accreditation and then all of a sudden I guess there was a new case. I knew nothing about it. It just sprung on me the same time you guys knew. So of course that’s a tough one to swallow, to know about that right before you’re about to run, so pretty tough.”
De Grasse was asked why he worked with Rana.
“I won the Olympics with him. He’s been my coach for the past three years, I won a lot of world-championship medals with him, Olympic medals,” the sprinter said. “So I kind of went back thinking that, you know, he can get me back to where I need to be.”
Until Paris, the native of Markham, Ont., had won a medal in every event he had raced at the Olympics. Earlier in the Games, De Grasse did not make it past the semi-final in the men’s 100 metres, after earning bronze medals in that event at the two previous Olympics, in Rio and Tokyo.
De Grasse wasn’t sure how to make sense of the coaching situation.
“I don’t know what to think of it,” De Grasse said. “I kind of have to re-evaluate after the Games.”
He has one more event to go in Paris – the men’s 4x100-metre relay. De Grasse anchored Canada to medals in the relay at the past two Games, bronze in 2016 and then silver in Tokyo three years ago.
“It’s been a tough 24, 48 hours,” De Grasse said. “But I’ve just got to try to keep my head and see if I can support my team any way I can tomorrow with the 4x100 relay.”