A month before the world track and field championships, Canada’s fastest man was winded just walking up the stairs in his home in Jacksonville, Fla.
Andre De Grasse recently returned to full practices after his second bout of COVID-19 interrupted a campaign that was finally looking up.
He said he suffered symptoms such as shortness of breath. The timing was frustrating, coming just as he was finding his form after an early-season foot injury.
“I was sleeping on the second floor, so I had to go up the stairs, and I felt [out of breath],” De Grasse said. “I feel like that for the first couple of days, and even when I was back training, trying to run, just trying to get my lungs back, definitely it hurt a bit. I was panicking a little bit.”
The 27-year-old from Markham, Ont., was slowed in the early season by an injury that affected his right big toe and arch.
Because the world championships are early in the season — July 15-24 in Eugene, Ore. — he originally raced to gauge where he was at, while knowing he hadn’t yet logged enough training to be 100 per cent. He was ninth at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene in late-May.
Less than three weeks later, he defeated a strong field to win the Oslo Diamond League in a season’s best 10.05. Then he caught COVID and was forced to withdraw from the Canadian championships.
De Grasse spent three days in bed, and isolated from his partner Nia Ali, who had her own U.S. trials for the world championships.
“I was pretty down and out,” he said. “And that first week of training when I went back, I didn’t feel great. Lungs, hard to breathe. It takes a lot to kind of get back. I had a cough, fatigue, things like that.”
De Grasse is planning to run the 100, 200 and 4×100-metre relay, as he did in both the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. He captured medals in all six, making him Canada’s most decorated male summer Olympian. He also raced all three at the 2019 world championships.
The schedule, however, makes for a grueling 10 days, since there are three rounds each in the 100 and 200. He’ll open with the first round of the 100 on July 15.
