Heating up at the right time, Canada sets out to prove continuity is king at World Relays

If you’re thinking of handicapping the men’s 4x100 metres at World Relays, scheduled for this weekend in Gaborone, Botswana, don’t do it.

Doesn’t matter that team Canada will feature two of the fastest sprinters on the planet this year. Andre De Grasse, who runs anchor for Canada, ran 9.95 seconds in Gaborone last Sunday in his 100-metre season-opener, and that time puts him sixth on the world list entering May. One spot ahead of him is Jerome Blake, who runs the back stretch for Team Canada, and who, running in the same heat as De Grasse, finished in a blistering 9.93 seconds. First big race of 2026, but Blake’s already in mid-season form.

Still, don’t try to handicap any of it.

Gambling in general is a bad idea, and the 4x100 specifically is a volatile event. For the best teams the race is chaos for a shade under 29 seconds, with resolution after the third exchange. Provided your team is fast and skilled and lucky enough to get the baton to the anchor, he’ll hit the afterburners and cross the line before the clock strikes 38.

We’ve all watched too many relays to assume that any one race will unfold according to the form sheet. Dropped batons happen, as do collisions and miscommunication. It’s a difficult race to predict even when all the variables align. If Team Canada is the pre-race favourite on paper, nobody is a true front-runner until the final leg.

But if we’re looking for big-picture stories about a group of sprinters on the far side of 30 putting up age-defying results, the plot figures to thicken in Gaborone. When dealing with the 4x100, it’s always too early and too late for predictions, but as programs start the slow build to LA28, early season results portend more glory for the most successful team in