Andre De Grasse: Why helping kids is so important for me

Andre De Grasse’s consistency has brought him the ultimate reward at the highest levels of track athletics.

From ten major finals, including six Olympic events, the Canadian has clinched 10 championship medals.

De Grasse finally stood on the top step of the podium for his first career gold medal with a brilliantly executed run in the men's 200m at Tokyo 2020 in 2021.

Now, as he chases a first world title at Oregon 2022, the 27-year-old has been seeking inspiration from the next generation of runners.

On 1 May, he launched an eight-week challenge dubbed ‘Race with Me!’ that seeks to get children involved in 200m races.

“Kids are like: ‘I want to race you and bet I can beat you.’ That’s always funny,” he said in an interview with the Star.

“A five-year-old, maybe a 10-year-old, I let them (win). A teenager … I’m like: Nah, sorry, you can’t beat me.”

'Race with me': How the Canadian sprint star gets kids to run

Known predominantly as a basketballer in high school, De Grasse took up running after making the podium twice at a college track meet in 2012.

Wearing a pair of ‘baggy’ basketball shorts and a borrowed pair of spikes, he didn’t even know how to line up on the starting blocks, but he still managed to finish second in the 100m and third in the 200m.

Olympic bronze medallist Tony Sharpe was among the spectators at the school event. He spotted the young teen talent and took up the role of polishing him as a sprinter.

Over a decade later, the 27-year-old is giving ‘reciprocal inspiration’. He is nurturing talent and offering youngsters an opportunity to exploit their passions and strengths on track.

During the 2021 Covid lockdown, his team and Jesse Briscoe, a Montreal teenager whose team sports were cancelled due to the pandemic, created a sprinting challenge.

“Race with me” an invite De Grasse constantly gets from kids around tracks, and is also the title of a children’s book the sprinter has co-written.

“I just wanted to try and do something fun for the kids, you know, take their minds off what was going on with lockdowns and things of that nature,” said De Grasse, who captured sprint double at the 2015 NCAA championships in North America

“I got such a great response from everyone, how much they loved it, how much they enjoyed it. I was like: OK, well, let’s do this thing again.”

In 2021, through his foundation, the track star, whose mother Beverly was a high school sprinter in Trinidad & Tobago, helped raise $25,000 for a charity that offers e-mental health support service for Black youth in Canada.

He’s also been working on a new clothing line that he helped designed.

Read more: Canada’s Andre de Grasse gets hands on 200m gold medal adding to Rio 2016 silver

Tokyo success and a career peak

Despite racing only four times at the distance in 2021, the fastest 200m runner in Canadian history went on to win his first major career gold at the Tokyo Olympic stadium in 19.62. A special victory as it was the first Olympic gold by a Canadian in the event since 1928.

“I’m now sort of a middle-aged sprinter, so to speak, I’m at the peak of my career, and I realize I’m lucky because a lot of guys don’t get more than one Olympics. So I have to focus on the details,” he told the globe and mail.

De Grasse hopes to continue that peak and replicate his Tokyo highs in Oregon at the Worlds.

“I try to portray myself in that way as having fun, staying cool in the moment. But of course, you know, there is always the behind the scenes, “he said. “The first race is always nerves. You’re a little bit superstitious. You’re kind of just hoping that you start off the season the right way.”

He didn’t quite get the start he wanted in the 2022 Diamond League. The Olympic champion finished fourth over 200m at the opening event in Doha, behind Noah Lyles. He just missed the podium again in Birmingham a week later, finishing fourth, and dropped to ninth over the same distance at the Prefontaine Classic at Eugene.

The Canadian had opened his season with a 4x100m relay with his Florida track clubmates at the Tom Jones Memorial on 16 April. Two weeks later the double Pan American Games gold medallist moved on to the UNF Invitational, Jax Track in Jacksonville winning the 200m and placing second in the 100m.

Despite that mixed start, he aims to turn it on at the world championships and better the silver he won over the 200m behind Lyles in 2019. That remains his best run at the championships after three bronze medals.

At the 2015 World Championships and at Rio 2016, De Grasse nearly beat sprint legend Usain Bolt in the 100m.

With the Jamaican now retired, could this be the time Andre De Grasse crosses the finish line in first and with a winning smile?