Like most Canadian monitor and discipline followers, 1996 Olympic champion and former 100m world report holder Donovan Bailey is eagerly awaiting the beginning of athletics on the Paris Olympics (the dash occasions start Friday). With a deep roster of Canadian athletes making their Olympic debuts or returning for one more Video games, Bailey has excessive hopes for breakthrough performances and journeys to the rostrum, and he shared his prime picks for the dash occasions with us.
The Canadian 100m report holder has bumped watching the Olympics to the very prime of his to-do record. Since sprinting runs in his blood, it’s no shock he’s excited to look at the Canadian males’s and ladies’s 100m and 4x100m relay performances; he additionally appears to be like ahead to cheering on 2023 world champion Marco Arop as he goals to improve his 800m semi-final end at Tokyo 2020 with a visit to the rostrum in Paris.
Males’s 100m predictions
The 100m prodigy isn’t sure the place he ought to place his bets for who will take gold within the males’s 100m. He believes the 2 Jamaicans, Kishane Thompson and Indirect Seville, ought to be favoured, together with the reigning world champion, Noah Lyles. However Bailey suggests not overlooking Crew USA’s Fred Kerley and the three Africans (Letsile Tebogo, Akani Simbine and Fernidand Omanyala).
“The match-up goes to be fierce,” Bailey says. In fact, we will count on him to be cheering the loudest for Canada’s Andre De Grasse, Duan Asemota and Aaron Brown.
Girls’s 100m favourites
On the ladies’s facet, he agrees that Sha’Carri Richardson is the plain favorite, on paper. “My sentimental favorite could be Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce,” Bailey says. “She’s one of many biggest feminine sprinters, and one of many biggest ambassadors for our sport. It’s her final Olympics, so it could be nice to see her win.”
Bailey expressed probably the most pleasure for Quebec’s Audrey Leduc, though she is going to seemingly need to run two private bests to get by means of the 100m rounds. He believes the 25-year-old remains to be untested, and can face much less stress in Paris than she did on the Canadian Olympic Trials in June.
“She made operating quick look so easy.” Bailey says. “I believe she’ll break the Canadian report, and if she places herself in a great scenario, possibly she’ll make the ultimate and shock lots of people. I believe she’s going to do superb.”
