Blake injury derails Canada’s 4x100 relay bid at world meet
Blake’s apparent right hamstring problem turned Canada’s fastest relay setup into a seventh-place finish, threatening the team’s momentum ahead of Beijing 2027.
Jerome Blake’s pull-up in the men’s 4x100 final in Gaborone turned what had looked like a medal run into a scramble for the line, and Canada’s Olympic relay core finished seventh in 40.06 seconds. The apparent right hamstring problem struck on the second leg, forcing Blake to hobble through the exchange to Brendon Rodney and upending a quartet that included Aaron Brown and Andre De Grasse.
The setback carried real Olympic consequences because the World Athletics Relays on May 2-3 served as a qualifier for the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing. World Athletics advanced the top two teams in each heat, plus the next two fastest overall, and Canada did enough in the opening round to reach the final after clocking 37.56 seconds, a time that matched the program’s recent standard for elite relay speed. In the final, however, the margin for error disappeared. The United States won in 37.43 seconds, South Africa took silver in 37.49 and Germany claimed bronze in 37.76, while Canada faded to seventh of eight.
That result lands harder because this same quartet has already proven it can win under championship pressure. Aaron Brown, Blake, Rodney and De Grasse took bronze at the 2025 World Athletics Relays in Guangzhou in 38.11 seconds, and Athletics Canada says the men’s group also owns Olympic silver from Tokyo in 2021 and world gold from 2022 in 37.48. Blake’s place in that sequence is central: the Kelowna, B.C. sprinter won the men’s 100 metres at the Botswana Golden Grand Prix in 9.93 seconds on April 26, beating De Grasse and Brown, and had been carrying strong form into the relay weekend.
Canada still left Botswana with a deeper picture than one broken relay leg suggests. Team Canada finished the meet with two silver medals, one bronze and five relay qualifications for Beijing 2027. The women’s 4x100 team took silver in 42.17 seconds, the women’s 4x400 won bronze in 3:22.66, and the broader relay program showed it remains among the world’s most competitive. But the Blake injury was a reminder that in the 4x100, speed alone is not enough. Baton timing, chemistry and health have to hold for four straight legs, and one compromised runner can erase months of momentum in under 40 seconds.
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