Andre De Grasse will not be defending his Olympic title in the men’s 200-metre final.
The 29-year-old from Markham, Ont., finished third in his semifinal at 20.41 seconds Wednesday at Stade de France.
He was officially eliminated for Thursday’s final when the third and fourth finishers in the next semifinal finished with better times.
De Grasse won gold in the event at the Tokyo Games with a personal best of 19.62 seconds.
The six-time Olympic medallist also missed the 100-metre final on Sunday, the first time in his career that he missed an Olympic final in the 100, 200 or 4×100 relay final.
He ran a season-best time of 9.98 seconds in the 100 semifinal but finished fifth in his heat.
Fellow Canadians Aaron Brown (20.57) and Brendon Rodney (20.59) also missed the cut.
WATCH | De Grasse says he may have re-aggravated a hamstring injury:
After being eliminated in the Olympic men’s 200-metre semifinals, Andre De Grasse tells CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux that he may have re-aggravated a hamstring injury.
Lyles to race for 2nd gold
Noah Lyles will race for his second Olympic gold medal despite finishing second in the 200-metre semifinal, his first loss at that distance in three years.
Letsile Tebogo of Botswana finished the heat in 19.96 seconds, beating Lyles by .12 and marking the first time the American has lost a 200 of any kind since he finished third at the Tokyo Games.
It opened up a 24-hour period to debate and discuss the meaning of the second-place finish, which still earned Lyles an automatic qualifying spot in Thursday night’s final but could have him running the curve from a less-than-ideal lane.
Last weekend, Lyles notably lost both his opening heat and the semifinal round of the 100, before coming back to eke out a .005-second victor y over Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson in the final. That win came about 90 minutes after another Jamaican, Oblique Seville, beat him in the semifinal for that sprint.
Source Agencies
