Running News Daily

Andre De Grasse switches coaches, heading into 2024 Olympics

After a season of highs and lows, Canada’s reigning 200m Olympic champion, Andre De Grasse, has switched things up for 2023. The six-time Olympic medalist, along with his partner, 2016 Olympic medalist Nia Ali, has moved to Orlando, Fla., to work with Irish sprint coach John Coghlan, leaving his controversial coach Rana Reider, with whom he spent three seasons.

De Grasse says he wanted to stay in North America, and became interested in Coghlan’s coaching success through 100mH Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, who went on to win the 100 hurdles for Puerto Rico at the Tokyo Olympics, and his agent Paul Doyle.

The Canadian 200m record holder told the CBC that his mindset and motivations have changed since the last Olympic cycle. “I’m getting older, so I was just trying to do something different this time around,” said De Grasse. “I believe having a smaller crew will benefit me.”

De Grasse’s partner, Ali, won gold in the women’s 100mH at the 2019 World Championships in Qatar and has her eyes on a Team U.S.A. spot for the 2024 Games.

The 28-year-old told CBC the move was more about a fresh start heading into the 2024 Paris Olympics than controversy around his former coach and his Tumbleweed Track Club in Jacksonville, Fla. “I just wanted to try something different,” said De Grasse. “I liked the idea of Orlando, and we thought it would be a good spot for our kids as well.”

In 2022 Reider, who has guided numerous athletes to Olympic and world championship medals, was under investigation by U.S. Center for SafeSport for alleged sexual misconduct. Reider was also the coach of Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare, who was suspended during the 2020 Olympic Games after a positive test for steroids; earlier this year, she was handed an 11-year suspension by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for multiple anti-doping offenses, on top of the original offense.

In November 2021, Athletics Canada withdrew its funding of Canadian athletes being coached by Reider, including De Grasse, due to the ongoing investigation.

At the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Ore., where De Grasse helped Canada’s 4×100-meter relay team win gold, Reider was seen trying to enter the athlete warmup area after his coaching accreditation was revoked by World Athletics, due to his ongoing investigation, and he was removed from the premises.

The Olympic 200m champion struggled to find his fitness at the beginning of the 2022 season and was sidelined due to COVID-19 three weeks before the world championships, where he bowed out of the 100m in the semis and was listed as a DNS in the 200m heats. 

With three major championships on the calendar over the next three years, De Grasse stressed that he wants to improve. “I felt like I wanted a little bit more attention to detail and stuff like that going into my next Olympics,” De Grasse told CBC.