While athletes and officials continue filling up Paris this weekend as we enter the final few days before Olympic competition, some track and field medal contenders will take a detour to London.
With the sprints being some of the glamour events of every Olympics, it’s worth keeping an eye on a couple of key races at Saturday’s Diamond League stop.
From a Canadian perspective, the performance of the 4×100-metre men’s relay team will be intriguing.
While powerhouses Jamaica and the United States won’t compete in this relay, it still shapes up as a key tune-up for Canada.
As Morgan Campbell reported at CBC Olympics, Canada could go in many different directions with its roster at an event in which the country won silver in Tokyo in 2021 and bronze in Rio in 2016.
Canadian star Andre De Grasse opted not to compete in the relays at last year’s world championships in the midst of a rocky campaign, preventing Canada from making a serious podium bid.
With De Grasse in May, Canada won silver at the World Relays. The team also featured Jerome Blake, Brandon Rodney and Aaron Brown.
Which athletes Canada uses in London, and then in Paris, will be a major decision for longtime relay coach Glenroy Gilbert.
Three other Canadians — Eliezer Adjibi, Duan Asemota and Malachi Murray — have been just over 10 seconds in the 100 metres this year. With the Paris 200-metre final, which could feature a couple of Canadians, in the same session as the 4×100-prelims, Gilbert may need to relay on depth in the relay.
Meanwhile, all three 2023 world championship medal winners are slated to compete in the men’s 100-metre individual race.
American Noah Lyles, the reigning world champ in the 100 and 200 as well as part of the winning 4×100 relay team, is one of the marquee names of the Paris Games.
Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo (silver in 2023) and Great Britain’s Zharnel Hughes (bronze) also are in the London field.
But none of those three are among the three fastest at the distance this year — Lyles is fourth at 9.83 seconds.
Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson blazed to a 9.77 late last month and leads the Olympic field.
History lesson
The Canadian swim team took a break from training camp in Caen, France on Thursday to go to nearby Juno Beach, 80 years after D-Day in Normandy.
Devin Heroux of CBC Olympics, who is covering the swim camp, shared photos of the Juno 80 shirts made by Swimming Canada for the athletes for the trip.
“I think it’s definitely very heavy in terms of what we saw in the museum, just really thinking of the amounts of Canadians that volunteered here and passed away,” Canadian swimmer Sydney Pickrem told Heroux.
“But at the same time, I feel very honoured we get to step here. It’s a lot of emotions.”
The team heads to Paris on Monday, with swimming set to start on the first full day of competition on July 27.
Coco to Coco
NBC Olympics shared a letter American tennis star Coco Gauff wrote to herself after a positive COVID-19 test forced her to drop out of the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
While the Grand Slams tend to have a bigger feel than the Olympics in tennis, it’s clear the Summer Games mean plenty to Gauff.
“‘Dear 17-year-old Coco,’” Gauff wrote.
“‘Your eyes don’t deceive you — that’s a positive COVID-19 test. The next one you take will be positive too, as will the third. It’s official — you have COVID, and it’s ruining all your big plans.’”
Gauff went on to write her lifelong dream was to be an Olympian and predicted that would happen in Paris.
Indeed, that will be the case as Gauff is ranked second in the world.
“‘In your phone under your vision notes, you wrote that you want to win a medal at the Olympics,’” she wrote. “‘Gold, silver, bronze — it doesn’t matter. But you’ve already won, you’ve made your childhood dream of playing at the Olympics, representing the United States, a real reality. And now, finally, you get to enjoy it.’”
Canadian connection
South Sudan’s men’s basketball team features a guy very familiar to the Canadian hoops community.
Ottawa native Marial Shayok led South Sudan with 27 points and made the game-sealing block as the team beat Great Britain 84-81 on Thursday in pre-Olympic play in London.
Shayok’s parents are Sudanese.
Shayok, 28, was a second-round pick of the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019 after playing in the NCAA at Virginia and Iowa State.
The six-foot-six Shayok played four games with the 76ers in his rookie season and has since spent time in the G League, Turkey and China.
South Sudan is the youngest nation in the world, having gained its independence just 13 years ago. The country clinched an Olympic berth by finishing as the highest-ranked African team at last year’s FIBA World Cup.
Former NBAer Luol Deng is the president of South Sudan’s basketball program.
South Sudan faces the United States on Saturday in its final tune-up in London.