Andre De Grasse ready to join 4x100 team for shot at podium

By Benjamin Blum, CBC Sports

Canada's Andre De Grasse has one more chance to go toe-to-toe with Usain Bolt at the Rio Games.

Tonight's 4x100-metre relay event is a chance to make up for a humbling second-place finish in Thursday's 200-metre final and deny Bolt an unprecedented triple-treble in Olympic sprinting.

This time, De Grasse will have some help on the track.

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• Usain Bolt dominates for 200 gold, Andre De Grasse gets silver

Canada's relay team qualified without De Grasse, posting a season-best time of 37.89 seconds Thursday morning. Fellow sub-10 100-metre sprinter Aaron Brown (he posted a 9.96 in June) ran second, while Mobolade Ajomale put in a strong performance at the anchor position.

Akeem Haynes and Brendon Rodney ran first and third, respectively, while Oluwasegun Makinde did not run in the qualifying heat.

The team looks to exorcise the demons of London; four years ago Canada lost its Olympic bronze medal after Jared Connaughton committed a lane violation during the third leg.

The current crop of sprinters has their own history to fight through as well after losing out on a Pan Am gold on home soil in 2015 due to an error by Gavin Smellie. While Smellie is not on the team in Rio, his former running mates can redeem him with a medal.

Canada will be in Lane 7 when the event is set to begin tonight at approximately 9:35 p.m. ET.

Difficult lineup decisions for relay coach

Where does De Grasse fit in to all of this? Only one man knows for sure, and he's not keen to let anyone else in on the decision-making process.

"Glenroy Gilbert [Canada's relay coach] tends to change his mind depending on how he's feeling along with how things may be going during the Olympics," Anson Henry, a two-time Olympic sprinter and a digital reporter with CBC Sports, said.

It's not without precedent: Gilbert's lineups for the Pan Am Games, the 2015 world championships and this past April's then-world standard run of 38.11 each contained different combinations of sprinters.

Henry said De Grasse will likely anchor the team, running in what he calls "the glory leg" of the relay.

"The fact of the matter is that it's the shortest leg out of all of the relay legs because [since] you get the baton on the fly [while already moving], you actually get the stick with only about 90 metres remaining," Henry said.

"You need someone who can make a quick impact on the race within a short period of time, which could be a necessity for the relay team," Henry said. "I'm thinking that they will have [De Grasse] run anchor for all of those reasons."

Brown, who told CBC Sports in June he prefers to run in the straightaway legs (either second or anchor), does have experience as lead-off. Haynes and Rodney are both consistent on the curve, and Ajomale's performance may force Gilbert to make a tough decision.

"We don't know for sure," Henry said.

Women's 4x100 final also Friday

The Canadian women's team also qualified for the final after crossing the line in a season-best 42.70 seconds.

With Kimberly Hyacinthe announcing earlier in Rio that she wouldn't run the relay due to injury, Canada is building a four-person team between Crystal Emmanuel, Phylicia George, Khamica Bingham, Marissa Kurtimah and Farah Jacques.

The women's squad is a long shot for a medal, especially after the Americans qualified on a makeup run. But the men's team could land on the podium with a strong all-around performance from whomever Gilbert selects.

There is, however, the matter of Bolt, not to mention the United States.

"You cannot be concerned in a relay about what's going on in another lane — that's what makes it so complicated," Donovan Bailey told CBC Sports. Bailey was Gilbert's teammate on Canada's gold-winning relay team at the 1996 Games.

"It's your ability to be completely focused and completely disciplined to get the stick to your guy, nothing else that's happening in the other lanes counts."

De Grasse's confidence has been on display on the track all week, but it was Brown who issued a challenge to the world's finest back in June.

"I see us competing with the Jamaicans and the USAs of the world [for gold]," Brown told CBCSports.ca. "I think we can compete for medals."

With files from The Canadian Press