Jamie Nye: De Grasse adds a long-awaited chapter in Canadian sprinting history

Over the last two weeks, we’ve been celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Atlanta Olympics. Donovan Bailey’s 100-metre golden run and then a week later, it was the Canadians’ 4x100m relay gold.

And now a quarter of a century later, Canada has its new sprinting hero.

Andre De Grasse now has a medal in every event he’s entered in his two Olympic appearances but his golden run in the 200m pushes him to an entirely new level of stardom.

He was already just the third Canadian to medal in both the 100m and 200m in the same games and now he’s done it twice.

While De Grasse’s run doesn’t touch Bailey’s 9.84 second world record run in Atlanta, in terms of all-time great Canadian moments, he’ll likely have the same impact Bailey had in inspiring young aspiring Canadian Olympians.

Hopefully this time we won’t have to wait as long to see another Canadian top the podium in one of the marquee sprinting events in the Olympics, though De Grasse may not be done if he elects to run at the age of 29 at the Paris Games in 2024.