Six-time Olympic medalist Andre De Grasse has been ever so close to hitting the Olympic 100m standard all season, but he has finally done it in his final European stop before heading back to Canada for the Olympic Trials. On Tuesday afternoon at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland, De Grasse placed third in the men’s 100m with a season’s best time of 10.00 seconds, equaling the Olympic 100m standard mark of 10-flat.
De Grasse finished third in the race behind his training partner and the reigning Olympic 100m champion, Marcell Jacobs of Italy, who won the race in a season’s best 9.92 seconds (+1.5 m/s). Jacobs’ Italian compatriot, Chituru Ali, finished second with a new personal best of 9.96 seconds.
Marcell Jacobs 9.92 at the Paavo Nurmi Games pic.twitter.com/tsTdvisQ3x
— Lana Archer 💟 (@gabbidee_) June 18, 2024
This is a good sign of things to come for De Grasse, who did not get the best start out of the blocks but was still able to salvage third with his fastest 100m time since September 2021. Last year, he failed to qualify for the 2023 World Championships in the 100m event, not advancing out of the semi-finals at the Canadian Trials.
With De Grasse already achieving the men’s 200m Olympic standard at the Diamond League final in September 2023, the 29-year-old can punch his ticket to Paris 2024 next week with a top-three finish in either the men’s 100m or 200m at the Bell Canadian Track and Field Trials in Montreal.
At Tokyo 2020, De Grasse won three medals for Canada in track and field. He won gold in the men’s 200m with a Canadian record time of 19.62 seconds, silver in the 4x100m relay, and bronze in the men’s 100m behind Jacobs and American sprinter Fred Kerley.
In a sit-down interview with De Grasse last fall for the launch of his book Ignite, the six-time Olympic medalist said he still had unfinished business with the 100m, wanting to break the Canadian men’s 100m record of 9.84 seconds and win Olympic gold
