Glenroy Gilbert didn’t watch Canada’s men’s 4x100m relay live Saturday night at Hayward Field.
Instead, Canada’s head coach, an Olympic relay champion, went for a walk.
The emotions were simply overwhelming.
“I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, it was too stressful,” Gilbert said. “I had so much hope for them, it was beyond anything I could control. So I thought, I’m going to ride. And all I was thinking was, if these guys do what they’re capable of doing, they can win. .It wasn’t even about winning a medal, we know they can win a medal, but they could win.
“I knew they were ready. They were ready to do something special.”
They once were.
The team of Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and anchor six-time Olympic medalist Andre De Grasse sprinted to gold at the world track and field championships. They broke the Canadian record in the process and dethroned the mighty Americans, who had swept the medals in both the 100m and 200m earlier in the meet.
The Canadians, Gilbert explained, decided to push the limits of their baton passing. They opened their brands in the exchange zones.
So, for example, where Blake would normally count back a “comfortable mark” of 27 steps, when running back Brown reaches that mark, that’s when Blake takes off, pushing him to 31.
The greater distance allows the outgoing runner to be at maximum speed when receiving the baton.
It’s risky. But it worked perfectly for Canada on Saturday night.
“The biggest thing was trust,” Gilbert said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press on Sunday. “That’s the key for this group was if they could trust each other, we could open the marks and that’s what we did.
“All three zones were faster than ever. No wonder they ended up winning. They just did things better.”
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The Canadians posted the fastest exchange zones: 5.61 seconds, compared to the USA (5.87) and bronze medalists Great Britain (5.94).
“We decided we were going to do it,” Gilbert said. “They’re going to pay attention to each other, watch the tape, react to the tape, come out as hard as they can, have a consistent good target (to get the baton) and then let the guy do his job once. take stick in hand.”
The win was a great end to a tough week for De Grasse, who did not qualify for the 100 final and withdrew from the 200 a month after contracting COVID-19.
Gilbert tested positive for COVID-19 in Eugene and had been isolated in an apartment all week. He wouldn’t have been inside the stadium for the relay anyway. He’d rather watch it on TV on the warm-up rink.
When he returned from his jaunt Saturday night, his phone was alight with messages.
“A friend on Facetime said, ‘They won.’ I said, ‘Get out of here,'” Gilbert said with a laugh.
It was Canada’s first world relay gold since Gilbert, Robert Esmie, Bruny Surin and Donovan Bailey raced to victory at the 1997 worlds.
Gilbert has coached Canada’s relays since the men won world bronze in 2013. Even after being named Athletics Canada’s head coach in 2017, he asked to continue working with the relays. His goal was to restore Canada’s relay to its glory days.
“I just said I’ve got to get these guys on the podium, but at the top, we’ve got to win a world championship,” said Gilbert, now 53. “We had the pieces to do it. It took a while to do it. It happened. But it was something I’ve always wanted to do was re-establish Canada as a sprint nation, like it was in the ’90s.”
Canada won Olympic gold in 1996 in Atlanta, where Bailey captured two golds, and Esmie ran with “Blast Off” shaved into her hair.
The Canadians, an identical team to Saturday’s championship team, won silver at last summer’s Tokyo Olympics, dropping bronze after a positive doping test on the British team. They raced to bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
But along with the highs, there have been many lows. The same team did not qualify for the 2019 World Cup finals.
At the 2012 London Olympics, a different Canadian crew briefly celebrated bronze. But joy turned to heartbreak when the team was disqualified for a lane violation.
It’s very rare for the baton to travel as perfectly through all the trade zones as it did in Canada on Saturday night.
“That’s where you’re putting yourself on the razor’s edge, that’s where the good relays tend to happen, that’s when you take those kinds of chances, trying to trade the baton near the end of the exchange zone (of 30 meters)”. Gilbert said. “It takes a lot to get there. I think they’re there now. I think they understand the value of that bigger brand, going deeper into the exchange zone and trusting each other.”
Canada’s relay will have a shot at another international glory at next month’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 24, 2022.
Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press