Andre De Grasse has made some big changes already within the past few weeks. Now he's made another hugh move, deciding to go to a new coach, Stuart McMillan of the ALTIS group.
The Canadian sprint phenom, who turned 21 in November, is coming off a dream season, winning both the 100m and 200m at the NCAA Championships, following it up with gold in the sprint double at the Pan American Games, and then topping it off with a bronze medal at the World Championships in the 100m running 9.92 seconds, fractions off the Canadian record of 9.84 seconds.
Despite this, he decided that a change in training environment was necessary heading into the 2016 Rio Olympics coming up this summer. He will now make the trip from Los Angeles to Phoenix to train with ALTIS (named after the sanctuary of the gods in Greece and site of the first Olympics before it was called Olympia).
"Now that I'm a professional athlete, I think it's best for me to be training with other professionals," said De Grasse from a hotel where he's residing until he finds a place in Arizona. "The setup at ALTIS seemed to be exactly what I need at this point in my career."
De Grasse has already had three coaches within the past four years, with ALTIS coach McMillan now being his fourth.
Continues to progress
Despite the constant changes he has been able to continue to progress. From 10.59 seconds in 2012 with coach Tony Sharpe, to 10.25 in 2013 with coach Remuro Henry at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas, 10.15 in 2014 again with coach Henry, and then followed by the astounding performances he had in 2015 of 9.92 in the 100 metres and 19.98 in the 200 metres training with coach Caryl Smith-Gilbert in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California.
He does not expect to be fazed by the coaching change.
"I've been blessed to have a lot of good coaches throughout my career, and they've all helped me a lot along the way," he says. "But I also believe strongly in my talent, and I believe that as long as I'm in good hands, if I stay focused I will just continue to get better. I'm in good hands at ALTIS."
McMillan, who has been coaching for the past 22 years, has coached over 60 Olympians at six Olympic Games, both summer and winter. He has developed his coaching skills under the tutelage of Dan Pfaff, former sprint coach of Canadian sprint legend Donovan Bailey, who introduced McMillan to Pfaff in 1995. McMillan wasted no time learning as much as possible.
Pfaff too, resides in Phoenix, and is an overall head coach at ALTIS.
McMillan is confident in the coaching support De Grasse will have at ALTIS, and over the past couple of days in sessions with De Grasse, has been amazed at how quickly he picks up what he's taught, how raw a talent he is, and how open he is to learning how to get better.
"The biggest thing when you get an athlete like Andre is just not to screw up," says McMillan just before practice on ALTIS grounds. "The [Olympic] 100 metres begins on August 12th, not far away, so the timing is a little tricky. But when you make a good decision, the timing is never wrong."
"It's difficult to run professionally in a college system. You don't always get the attention and resources you need as the college athletes are priority. Here Andre will have coaches with him whenever he needs them, physio, nutrition - everything will be at his disposal."
De Grasse still has his sights on getting his degree from USC before the end of 2016. He'll be taking some of his courses online and will also head back to USC in the fall.
"The Olympics comes along every four years," he says. "I can get my degree any year. But I am going to do everything I need to do to make sure that I am ready to perform my best for this Olympic year."
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