De Grasse doubles up on Olympic sprint medals with Rio 200 metre silver

Canada has completed a 100m/200m Olympic sprint medals double with Andre De Grasse finding the podium on Thursday night in Rio de Janeiro.

Winning silver in 20.02 seconds, De Grasse added a 200 metre medal to his100m bronze won on Sunday.

Running out of lane four, De Grasse was in a pack of runners behind Usain Bolt before breaking away with about 70 metres to finish. Once there was daylight between the Canadian chasing Bolt and the rest of the field, a Canadian silver medal was all but guaranteed.
 

Bolt won gold for Jamaica in 19.78 for his third consecutive Olympic 200m title. It’s the eighth gold medal Bolt has won in the Olympics and could win a ninth in the 4x100m relay final on Friday.

Christophe Lemaitre took the bronze medal in a dramatic 20.12 after a photo finish showed he beat Adam Gemili of Great Britain and Churandy Martina of the Netherlands at the line.
 

De Grasse is the first Canadian male to win medals in the 100m and 200m at the same Olympics since Percy Williams did it at Amsterdam 1928. Two decades earlier, Bobby Kerr had also done it at London 1908.

The Canadian sprinter will have another chance at a medal. Canada qualified for the 4x100m relay final on Friday with its second fastest time in history, and it was done without De Grasse as he rested for the 200m final.