Clutch athlete who runs the last leg of the relay to help his team clinch an unlikely gold. Aspiring actor. Full-time philanthropist and a hands-on dad, Canada’s seven-time Olympic medallist Andre De Grasse already wears quite a few hats. He donned another one on Thursday — that of Guest Sports Editor at The Times Of India’s Mumbai office in his capacity as international event ambassador of the 2026 Tata Mumbai Marathon. Having arrived from Florida in the wee hours, the 31-year-old showed no trace of jet-lag even as he denied having been able to catch some sleep. But he fielded questions sharply on Usain Bolt, on shunning the Enhanced Games, on cricket and his goal of getting to one more Olympics in 2028 at Los Angeles, which he calls his ‘home Games’ because he studied there and the Olympic village is just a short sprint away from his old classroom…Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Is this your first visit to India?First time in India, first time in Mumbai. From seeing the city for the first five or six hours, it is beautiful. I have a nice view from my room, and I see Marine Drive. Yeah, so it is a really nice view, and it kind of reminds me a little bit of home, a little bit of Toronto, because we have the tall buildings and the CN Tower, and we have the lake and everything. But your city is much, much bigger.
You are here as an ambassador of the Tata Mumbai Marathon. We are curious to know whether you have tried distance running…The most I ever ran was one mile. Some of my family members participated in a 5k or a 10k, but not anything like a marathon. A marathon is extremely hard. 43 kms, 26 miles, almost. It is definitely something I watched, but I never participated in. But maybe one day, we will see.From basketball at school to sprinting in the Olympics. So, can we call you an accidental runner?Track was not my first sport, so for me, when I got into the sport, I was just having fun. I did not think of it as, like, “Oh, I am going to be an Olympian one day,” or be a professional. I just had fun. I got into track in the last year of my high school.I bumped into a friend on the school bus, and we were joking around about who was fast and who was not fast. I went out to the track meet, and I ended up racing him and beating him. That was when one of the Olympians from Team Canada, Tony Sharp, discovered me and said, “Hey, kid Andre, you are pretty fast. You should try this sport.” At that time, I was playing basketball.
You are from Canada and your career has coincided with the domination of the Americans and Jamaicans. How good did it feel to beat them and get that gold in the 200m in Tokyo?Yeah, it felt amazing. It was a tough schedule, because it was the pandemic. We tried to find ways to train, and everything was shut down in the world. So we trained four or five hours on the track and in the weight room, and you hoped it did not go to waste.Considering all the challenges, was that your sweetest win?I think my favourite moment was when I got to race at home in Toronto. We had the Pan American Games in 2015, and I won in front of my family and my friends and my home crowd. It was the first time I ever won something big. I won the gold in the Tokyo Olympics, but because we were still in the middle of a pandemic, I did not get a chance to race in front of my family and my friends.Which is the race you keep replaying in your head?I would say Tokyo. Another good moment was Paris — winning the relay with my teammates. That was a special moment because we got to do it together. And we’ve known each other since we were young, like, maybe 16, 17 years old. So three of us, we ran with each other for the last 10 years.So we always talked about, like, ‘Oh, we need to win. We need to win one before we all retire’. That was a cool moment between myself, Aaron (Brown), and Brendon (Rodney).
There is that iconic pic of you and Usain Bolt crossing the finish line in the 200m semifinals at Rio where he is seen grinning as he looks behind…(Laughs) It wasn’t planned. Everyone always asked me, ‘Was it planned?’ But it was not planned. My coach was like, ‘hey, we’re in the semifinals. We need to finish top two to make it to the finals. So try to go out hard because you have Usain in your heat, but make sure you save enough energy for the final.So I just remember, when I got to 160, 170 metres in the race, usually you look around to see if you can shut it down or not. Like see if anybody’s gonna pass you or ‘can I save some energy?’ So I just looked to the side and I saw Usain doing the same thing, and that kind of just happened. We just smiled at each other.The last decade we have had runners like Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay, Johan Blake, they were all top-world class sprinters. But when it came to racing Bolt, they were always behind him.Yeah (laughs).When you know there is already somebody who is going to be king, how difficult is it for an athlete to train knowing that there is someone you might not be able to beat?I don’t think any athlete feels that way. I think we all feel like we can win. I mean even though it seems far out of reach sometimes. You know, when you see a guy like Usain like run the world record and run that fast, but we know as an athlete, you have to show up on that day. It doesn’t mean because you ran fast last week or the week before, that you can run fast again. You have to be consistent every single time.Has the definition of a perfect race for you changed from the time you were 21 to now?When I was younger, I always used to think, there is a perfect race. But now, as I’ve been more in the sport, I’m like, there is no perfect race. Like, you can always be better. I remember watching back my 100 metres at the Tokyo Olympics and I ran a personal best of 9.89. And I was watching it back with my coach and he was like, ‘Oh, you did so bad. Like this part of the race, from 10 to 30m, you did so bad. If you just did what you did in the first round, it would be a different race’. So you always go back and say, you could be better, and that’s the beauty of the sport.Every elite sprinter wants that Olympic gold badly, and you won two of those. But finishing on the podium in every Olympic and World Championship final you competed in from 2015 to 2022. Where does that rank for you?I’ve been blessed to have a good team and have a good support system that helps me be able to accomplish those goals because it’s not easy, of course. I just try to work hard and try to make that happen. I mean it’s not any rocket science. It’s just trying to do all the hard work and hopefully at the end of the day, you did enough work for that outcome to come.You are 31 right now and the 2028 LA Olympics is just over two years away. You will be competing against young guns like Noah Lyles, Oblique Seville and Kishane Thompson.LA 2028 will feel close to home for me as it’s close to Canada. Also, I went to school in Los Angeles which was right down the street from where the main stadium is going to be so that will feel like home games for me as I know a lot of people there.I know I’m an older athlete now compared to the younger guys like Noah and Kishane but I want to try to do one more Olympics and try to do the best of my abilities.Sports science has advanced a lot and it has enabled athletes across disciplines to have a long career. Is that something you are looking to get the most out of it?That has played a big role especially with your recovery. As I’ve got older now, you get more sore and feel fatigued but a lot of these new machines have helped me continue my training and make sure that like I stay on track and I’m able to go to train the next day…now I can’t say “coach I don’t feel I can go today. My body hurts”.You ran your first track meet with borrowed spikes and basketball shorts. Have you kept them as memorabilia, and how much do you think they might fetch at an auction for your foundation?Yeah, I still have them somewhere in my parents’ house. I don’t know how much they’d go for. Sometimes I auction off the spikes I wear now for my foundation— they might go for about US$500.Your mom is from Trinidad and your dad from Barbados, two decorated West Indies islands. Has that sparked interest in cricket?Yeah. When I visited my dad in Barbados as a kid, maybe 9 or 10, we played a lot of cricket. I haven’t played since, but I love it. I like to bat and hit sixes.You spoke about training with your coach and not questioning him. How does that compare to parenting?Parenting is tough. My kids are young, so you need a lot of patience, they cry and yell a lot. I’ve gotten better over the years. At first, I thought it would be a tough challenge, but now I balance it better and try to figure out what they like and what keeps them from crying.
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