The highest two quickest males’s Canadian 100m sprinters in 2024 aren’t the family names you’d anticipate. One is an unsponsored enterprise guide from Ajax, Ont., who put his identify within the dialog for each the Olympic 1o0m and 4x100m relay group choice with a wind-legal 10.03 seconds clocking on the Bob Vigars Basic in London, Ont., final weekend. Duan Asemota has adopted within the footsteps of Andre De Grasse and he hopes to shake issues up on the Canadian Olympic group this summer time.
As issues stand, Asemota sits contained in the World Athletics quota to doubtlessly be chosen for the 100m occasion in Paris; it will be his first Olympic group. The one runner with a sooner time this season is Edmonton sprinter Malachi Murray, who ran 10.01 seconds earlier this yr.
Asemota’s time additionally put him into the highest 10 all-time amongst Canadian sprinters. “Though I be ok with it, the aim is to get the ten.00 Olympic normal,” says Asemota. “There’s rather more to come back, as that is solely my second race of the outside season.”
In his first race of the season, the 27-year-old broke the 10-second barrier with a wind-aided (+3.4 m/s) 9.98-second clocking in Baton Rouge, La., the place he beat fellow Canadian sprinters Aaron Brown, Brendon Rodney and Murray. Rodney is the one Canadian athlete with the Paris 2024 Olympic normal of 10.00 seconds—a time he ran on the Canadian Observe and Area Championships in July 2023, when the Olympic qualifying window opened.
Asemota is a product of Toronto’s Velocity Academy, run by former Canadian Olympian Tony Sharpe, which has developed among the nation’s prime expertise, together with six-time Olympic dash medallist Andre De Grasse and younger 400m phenom Christopher Morales Williams. “Chris and I having stellar seasons says rather a lot about Tony’s eye for expertise,” says Asemota. “Tony has discovered among the greatest sprinters of this period.”
With the Bell Canadian Olympic Observe and Area Trials in Montreal on the finish of June, Asemota has not solely put his identify within the dialog for the 100m occasion, however he additionally hopes to be a starter on the boys’s 4x100m relay group. “I’ve been within the Canadian relay pool for just a few years now as an alternate, however I desire a shot on the backstretch,” says Asemota on the place at the moment held by Jerome Blake. “No matter coach Glenroy (Gilbert) decides is the perfect choice to make on the Olympics is 100 per cent as much as him.”
