Andre de Grasse watched Aaron Brown burst out of the blocks and round the corner at lightning speed.
Brown passed the baton to Jerome Blake, who ran into lane 9 before Brendan Rodney kept pace as he charged towards Canada's anchor at the Stade de France.
“I've never seen those three guys run like that,” DeGrasse said. “They ran the race of their lives.”
De Grasse caught the final handoff – and the rest was history. While nursing a hamstring injury, the star sprinter led the underdog Canadian men's 4x100m relay team to an unexpected gold medal at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 9.
“Those guys controlled the race,” coach Glenroy Gilbert said. “And once you put the stick in Andre's hand … it's a no-brainer.
“There's no better boy with ice water in his veins to finally take the stick.”
The relay team of Brown, Blake, Rodney and De Grasse ran away with the 2024 Canadian Press Team of the Year award on Saturday.
Watch Canada's men's 4x100m relay team win Olympic gold:
Andre de Grasse, Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Brendan Rodney claimed the Olympic gold medal in the 4x100m relay with a winning time of 37.50.
De Grasse tied swimmer Penny Oleksiak as Canada's most decorated Olympian with seven medals. The team victory also saved a disappointing individual performance as all four sprinters failed to reach the final in Paris.
They received 37 out of 53 votes from writers, broadcasters and editors across the country.
“Out of nowhere, the Canadian men's 4×100-metre relay team put together one of the most electrifying and stunning moments of any Olympic Games,” said Postmedia Calgary sports editor Todd Selhoff.
The 1996 men's relay team headlined by Donovan Bailey is the only other track team to earn the honor since the award's inception in 1966.
Team Rachel Homan, who won both the Canadian and World Curling Championships, finished second with seven votes. Stanley Cup final losers Edmonton Oilers and Olympic silver medalist volleyball duo Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandi Wilkerson tied for third with three votes.
“This relay team was not even expected to make it to the podium,” said CBC Sports senior producer Tony Keir. “This gold medal was the greatest moment of the Paris Olympics.”
Watch l Brown break men's 4x100m relay from Paris 2024:
Canadian sprinter Aaron Brown walks us through the men's Olympic 4x100m race that won him his first Olympic gold medal. Remember where you were when you witnessed this Canadian Olympic moment?
None of the sprinters made it to the individual finals, they barely even made it to the relay finals with the slowest qualifying times.
Gilbert recalls seeing the situation as “pretty dire” for the team.
Brown described the group's morale as “despondent and kind of down”.
A heat review with biomechanist Dana Way helped the Canadian realize that results were possible without their good legs, as long as their exchanges were on point.
Then, standing outside the call room where the teams huddle for a final prayer, Brown rallied his fellow runners with an impromptu speech that still resonates months after winning the gold.
“This is our shot, we can do it,” Brown said of his message. “Really emphasize that we can do it if no one is checking for us, no one believes we can do it.”
Watch Brown reflect on his golden moment in Paris, look ahead to 2025:
4-time Olympic sprinter Aaron Brown finally became an Olympic gold medalist after running the first leg of the Paris 2024 men's 4x100m relay that saw his team including Andre de Grasse, Jerome Blake and Brendan Rodney win the title. Anastasia Bucsis sat down with the sprinter to talk life from Paris and what's in store for 2025.
Brown also hammered home that this could be their swan song after years of success as a quartet.
De Grasse, Rodney and Brown won bronze at the Rio 2016 Games before Blake joined them to claim silver — upgraded from bronze — at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. They won world championship gold in 2022 in Eugene, Ore.
At the relay final in Paris, Blake was the youngest in the group at 28. De Grasse was 29, while Rodney and Brown were 32 — not the only young guns in a game usually dominated by youth.
“Who knows if everyone's going to be running in LA (in 2028)?” De Grasse recalled Brown's statement. “Just basically giving that speech, 'We're going to go out there and shock the world … Let's go out here and trust each other and get off that mark and run like your life depends on it.'
“It pumped me up, it put me in a different mindset, and it gave me that motivation that we needed to work on.”
After the win, a video of American sprint star Noah Lyles repeatedly asking “Who?” Questions about competition with Canada resurfaced earlier that year and went viral. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also mentioned it in a social media post.
Blake insists they forgot all about it until they celebrated on the track with Canadian flags wrapped around their arms.
“That's when someone in the stadium, a Canadian fan, said, 'What next? Canada who?' as it was said Blake, who repeated those words to reporters after the race. “That's when I started screaming.”
Looking ahead, Brown, Blake, Rodney and de Grasse all want to continue sprinting for the next four years and compete in the 2028 Games, but they acknowledge that a lot could change in that time.
For now, they are focused on making it back to next year's World Championships in Tokyo.
And after the gold strike in Paris, they don't expect anyone to ask who Canada is in 2025.
“The world will definitely have a target on us, a big one,” Rodney said. “We've just come up with our A game. It's always hard to get motivated after the Olympics, but the motivation is that you're the target now.”
