World Relays reveal Canada can lean on depth, continuity in buildup to 2025 world championships | CBC Sports
If you’re fixated on outcomes, maybe the bronze medal Canada’s men’s 4x100 team earned at World Relays last weekend in Guangzhou, China seems like a regression, but Canada’s foursome is actually well-positioned for the 2025 world championships in Tokyo.
If you're fixated on outcomes, maybe the bronze medal Canada's men's 4x100-metre team earned at World Relays last weekend in Guangzhou, China seems like a regression.
Canada fielded the same lineup that won Olympic gold last summer in Paris, yet here was Andre De Grasse on the anchor leg, trying but not quite succeeding in keeping pace with South Africa's Akani Simbine in a sprint to the finish line. South Africa took gold in 37.61 seconds, .05 seconds ahead of the United States, with Canada back in third at 38.11.
Last year at this same competition Canada took silver, behind a U.S. team anchored by all-world sprinter Noah Lyles.
No sprinter, after all, can control what happens in another lane, and Simbine is already midseason-sharp. Last month he ran 9.90 into a headwind, a time that still leads the world. He doesn't need permission from De Grasse or any other rival to run fast. The only person who could stop Akani Simbine from a blistering anchor leg was Akani Simbine, and Simbine chose to conduct a clinic.
A bit more perspective.
De Grasse left a group of anchor runners flailing in his wake, and gained ground on Brandon Hicklin, who ran last for the U.S. The post race stats analysis had De Grasse covering the final leg in 8.90 seconds, which means he did his job. A cleaner first exchange between Aaron Brown and Jerome Blake would likely have bumped Canada below the 38-second barrier, and put them within shouting distance of silver.
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Viewed that way, Canada's foursome is actually well-positioned for the 2025 world championships in Tokyo. A podium performance with room to improve between now and September.
That setup makes the World Relays unique, and useful to countries, like Canada, with ambitious relay programs. It's a global event with real medals at stake, but it's also a dress rehearsal for a blockbuster end-of-year competition. It's the preseason and the playoffs at the same time. The results matter, but so do the projections.
As for concrete accomplishments, Team Canada left Guangzhou with a gold medal in the co-ed 4x100, a national record in the women's 4x100, and yet another men's 4x100 medal. But just as importantly, as Tokyo 2025 approaches, and De Grasse et al edge deeper into their 30s, Canada displayed the kind of relay depth that could help it earn medals in the long term.
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If this were strictly a sprint depth contest, the U.S. would win in a landslide, almost every year. Canada has four legal sub-10-second sprinters in its history. The U.S. has six this year, including two high schoolers. Canada won bronze with its best men's relay team. The U.S. left two Olympic 100m medallists – Lyles and Fred Kerley – at home and took silver.
On the women's side, you can attribute the U.S.'s fourth-place finish to the fact that two of the sport's fastest early-season performers – Melissa Jefferson and Gabby Thomas – stayed behind, while Sha'Carri Richardson won't open her season until this Sunday.
But the problem, as U.S. men's teams keep demonstrating, is that cornering the market on the world's fastest individual sprinters doesn't guarantee success in a team event.
It takes a baseline level of speed, obviously.
Canadian 4x100-metre men finish 3rd at World Athletics Relay final
Even if Team Canada has some hiccups early, they're in medal contention if De Grasse can lay down an 8.9-second final leg. But chemistry counts, too, so it helps that each member of the men's relay understands his role, and how to set his teammates up for success.
And relay running is a craft unto itself, a skill you can sharpen with practice.
If you don't believe me, you can go back to Kenny Bednarek's performance last weekend. In Paris, Bednarek torpedoed team USA's 4x100 medal hopes when he took off too early, and left leadoff runner Christian Coleman marooned at the first exchange. Nine months later, here was Bednarek, executing flawless changeovers while laying down the fastest splits of the weekend. In the prelims he covered the back stretch, typically the longest leg in a 4x100, in 8.91 seconds, then ran 8.79 in the final. If the U.S. men had won, you could have named Bednarek the meet's MVP.
Or you can revisit that exchange between Brown and Blake in the men's final. Brown whiffed twice before finally slapping the baton into Blake's left hand. Then he gritted his teeth and slammed his fists against his thighs, visibly frustrated the handoff hadn't gone more smoothly.
A pessimist could point out, correctly, that the glitch cost Canada precious time. Blake's back stretch split time, recorded at 9.32 seconds, likely comes down if he doesn't have to wait for the baton.
An optimist will tell you that veteran relay runners also prove their value in those moments. Two rookies, with a lower level of mutual trust, might blow that exchange completely, and get the team disqualified. A veteran can adjust on the fly, complete the handoff, and keep the team in the race.
By now, we're used to seeing the men's 4x100 perform when it counts.
But the depth on display this past weekend? That's a new wrinkle.
The women's 4x100 for example, showed the kind of round-to-round continuity that U.S. men's team dreams of but can never quite achieve. They showed us a new lineup in the semi – Marie-Éloïse Leclair replacing Jacqueline Madogo on the back stretch, and Catherine Léger filling in for Leclair on the third leg. Three seamless exchanges later and they had qualified for the final, where the normal lineup – Sade McCreath to Madogo to Leclair to Audrey Leduc – ran 42.46 to set a new national record.
Canadian 4x100-metre women set new national record, finish 5th at World Athletics Relay
As for the gold medal in the co-ed 4x100…
It's an achievement on its own. McCreath, Leclair, Duan Asemota and Eliezer Adjibi delivered Canada's only outright win of the weekend. But it also provided crucial high-stakes live reps for sprinters just outside the men's and women's 4x100 starting lineups.
Asemota's 9.31 third leg holds up against any third runner in the men's final, and signals that Canada might finally have a sorely-needed hedge against injuries or schedule conflicts at upcoming global competitions. In the past, it wasn't clear if Canada could swap runners in and out without risking performance. Last weekend's results suggest it's possible now.
Add that to the advantages Team Canada has over the U.S. in the men's relay heading into Tokyo.
The U.S can summon 9.9 sprinters off the bench, and that's huge strength.
But Canada now looks to have depth and continuity. In the 4x100, those are superpowers.
Morgan Campbell joins CBC Sports as our first Senior Contributor after 18 standout years at the Toronto Star. In 2004 he won the National Newspaper Award for "Long Shots," a serial narrative about a high school basketball team from Scarborough. Later created, hosted and co-produced "Sportonomics," a weekly video series examining the business of Sport. And he spent his last two years at the Star authoring the Sports Prism initiative, a weekly feature covering the intersection of sports, race, business, politics and culture. Morgan is also a TedX lecturer, and a frequent contributor to several CBC platforms, including the extremely popular and sorely-missed Sports Culture Panel on CBC Radio Q. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Literary Review of Canada, and the Best Canadian Sports Writing anthology.
