De Grasse missing nationals due to COVID-19 is a chance to hit reset on unsettled season

This is a column by Morgan Campbell, who writes opinion for CBC Sports. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

More than two years into the coronavirus pandemic, how quickly is COVID-19 still spreading?

So fast that we've lost track of cases. Did you even notice there are multiple versions of Omicron gaining ground around the world? No shame if you hadn't. This bug is evolving as rapidly as distance runner shoe technology.

It no longer makes headlines for simply existing, but it hops between hosts so quickly that, here in Ontario, we've literally lost count. The province didn't stop its daily data updates because the virus had disappeared, but because it was spreading faster than they could reliably test and track.

COVID-19 moves so fast it chased down Canada's Fastest Man, Andre De Grasse, who contracted the virus sometime between his 10.05-second win at Diamond League Oslo and his return to his training base in Jacksonville, Fla. In between, he laboured to a fourth-place finish in the 200 at Diamond League Paris. His time, 20.38 seconds, is blazing fast in the real world but sluggish for De Grasse, who holds the national record at 19.62 seconds.

Last week, you could have attributed the lacklustre run to jetlag, or to legs still heavy after his fast race in bad conditions in Oslo. Now, you wonder if the early stages of COVID-19 slowed him.

WATCH | De Grasse wins 100m in Oslo stop of Diamong League tour:

On Tuesday morning De Grasse made his diagnosis public, and confirmed he would miss this weekend's national championships in Langley, B.C., where he was scheduled to run the 100 and 200.

"I'm obviously pretty disappointed not to be able to race at home," De Grasse said in a statement.